Description
Book SynopsisIn Trauma and the Soul, Donald Kalsched continues the exploration he began in his first book, The Inner World of Trauma (1996)âthis time going further into the mystical or spiritual moments that often occur around the intimacies of psychoanalytic work. Through extended clinical vignettes, including therapeutic dialogue and dreams, he shows how depth psychotherapy with traumaâs survivors can open both analytic partners to another world of non-ordinary reality in which daimonic powers reside, both light and dark. This mytho-poetic world, he suggests, is not simply a defensive product of our struggle with the harsh realities of living as Freud suggested, but is an everlasting fact of human experienceâa mystery that is often at the very center of the healing process, and yet at other times, strangely resists it.
With these two worlds in focus, Kalsched explores a variety of themes as he builds, chapter by chapter, an integrated psycho-spiritual approach to trauma a
Trade Review
"Kalsched’s invaluable work shows that our psychopathology has a spiritual core, and demonstrates that dealing with such material is a spiritual practice. I believe his work is a form of the redemption of evil; the therapist visits the patient’s hell with her, becomes a compassionate witness, and faces or even exorcises the devil in the patient’s soul." - Lionel Corbett, Journal of Analytical Psychology
Table of ContentsIntroduction.Trauma and Life-Saving Encounters with the Numinous. Loss and Recovery of the Soul-Child. Dissociation and the Dark Side of the Defensive System: Dante's Encounter with "Dis" in the Inferno.Trauma, Transformation and Transcendence: The Case of Mike.Wholeness and Anti-Wholeness Defenses. Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Inner World: Applying Theory to the Cases so Far. Innocence, Its Loss and Recovery: Reflections on St. Exuperey's The Little Prince.C. G. Jung Between the Worlds: Was Jung's Divided Self Pathological? Dismemberment and Re-memberment: Reflections on a Case of Embodied Dream Work in Light of Grimm's Fairy Tale The Woman Without Hands.
