Memory: Between traumatic shock and psychic historicization

Int J Psychoanal. 2017 Aug;98(4):985-997. doi: 10.1111/1745-8315.12675.

Abstract

'I want to erase him from my memory,' she said, 'his eyes, his eyes staring at me … they are there every night, his hand … every night it hits me again and again …'. On the basis of these few words taken from the therapeutic work with Keltoum, the author reflects theoretically and clinically on the place of memory in a traumatism: a fixed memory, a 'frozen image', the signs of a traumatic compulsion to repeat, are the expressions of a process of psychic disorganization but also of a 'symbolized and symbolizing' memory anticipating a possible historicization of this memory, of a path, therefore, towards a resolution of the trauma resulting from a process of psychic integration and reorganization.

Keywords: chimera; historization; psychoanalysis; traumatic memory.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Female
  • Humans
  • Memory, Episodic*
  • Middle Aged
  • Psychoanalytic Therapy / methods
  • Psychological Trauma / psychology*
  • Psychological Trauma / therapy