Bessel van der Kolk defines trauma as “an inescapably stressful event that overwhelms [the individual's] existing coping mechanisms” (1). Our sense of self emerges and evolves through relationships, attachment, and emotional co-regulation. However, inescapable self-invalidation or self-annihilation by a powerful other can profoundly disrupt an individual’s sense of self. Early relational trauma occurs at a developmental stage when neither the ego nor the brain has matured sufficiently to construct a coherent coping mechanism for unbearable experiences.

Marcus West describes the trauma complex as a deeply ingrained, unconscious psychological structure formed in response to early relational trauma. When the natural multiplicity of self-states becomes fragmented, the psyche splits, creating a dissociated part of the self that remains frozen in the emotional and physiological state of the trauma, while other aspects are exiled to avoid overwhelming distress. For Donald Kalsched, dissociation is synonymous with Wilfred Bion’s concept of ‘attacks on linking.’ He writes: “… this defence sometimes annihilates all connections between feelings and thought, between the body and the mind, and neurologically between the emotional centres in the limbic brain and the higher cortical centers” (2).

Dissociation is “a biological predisposition of the human mind” (3). Milder dissociative states include multitasking, being on autopilot, or ‘zoning out.’ More severe dissociative states, however, disrupt the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. According to Carl Jung and Philip Bromberg, the dissociability of the psyche is not inherently pathological but rather a natural, adaptive function of personality. Every individual possesses multiple self-states that may sometimes present as conflicting feelings, beliefs, desires, or values. Dissociation, in this sense, serves a protective function for the psyche. Difficulties arise only when these self-states remain disconnected and unintegrated.

Written for @jungsouthernafrica

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References: (1) Van der Kolk BA, Pelcovitz D, Roth S, Mandel FS, McFarlane A, Herman JL. (1996) Dissociation, somatization, and affect dysregulation: the complexity of adaptation of trauma. Am J Psychiatry. 1996 Jul;153(7 Suppl):83-93. doi: 10.1176/ajp.153.7.83. (2) Kalsched, D (2013) Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-Spiritual Approach to Human Development and Its Interruption. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, p. 483 (3) Schumaker (1995, p. 91) in Gabel, S (2020), D.W Winnicot and religion: the intermediate are of experiencing as a dissociative phenomenon. British Journal of Psychotherapy, 36, (1), 4 -21

Sources:

• Bromberg, P. M. (1996). Standing in the spaces: The multiplicity of self and the psychoanalytic relationship. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 32(4) https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1996.10746334
• Bromberg, P. M. (2006). Awakening the dreamer: Clinical journeys. Analytic Press.
• West, M. (2016) Into the Darkest Places Early Relational Trauma and Borderline States of Mind. Taylor & Francis Group.

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