The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit
by Donald Kalsched | Goodreads
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The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit
by
Donald Kalsched
4.59 · Rating details · 234 ratings · 15 reviews
Donald Kalsched explores the interior world of dream and fantasy images encountered in therapy with people who have suffered unbearable life experiences. He shows how, in an ironical twist of psychical life, the very images which are generated to defend the self can become malevolent and destructive, resulting in further trauma for the person. Why and how this happens are the questions the book sets out to answer.
Drawing on detailed clinical material, the author gives special attention to the problems of addiction and psychosomatic disorder, as well as the broad topic of dissociation and its treatment. By focusing on the archaic and primitive defenses of the self he connects Jungian theory and practice with contemporary object relations theory and dissociation theory. At the same time, he shows how a Jungian understanding of the universal images of myth and folklore can illuminate treatment of the traumatised patient.
Trauma is about the rupture of those developmental transitions that make life worth living. Donald Kalsched sees this as a spiritual problem as well as a psychological one and in The Inner World of Trauma he provides a compelling insight into how an inner self-care system tries to save the personal spirit. (less)
- Acknowledgements
- Introductionp.1
- The Inner World of Trauma in Its Diabolical Formp. 11
- Further Clinical Illustrations of the Self-Care Systemp. 41
- Freud and Jung's Dialogue about Trauma's Inner Worldp. 68
- Jung's Contributions to a Theory of the Self-Care Systemp. 84
- Additional Jungian Contributionsp. 100
- Psychoanalytic Theory about the Self-Care Systemp. 115
- Rapunzel and the Self-Care Systemp. 148
- Psyche and Her Daimon-Loverp. 166
- Fitcher's Bird and the Dark Side of the Selfp. 184
- Prince Lindworm and Transformation of the Daimonic Through Sacrifice and Choicep. 201
- Notesp. 216
- Bibliographyp. 219
- Indexp. 226
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.
Paperback, 240 pages
Published December 25th 1996 by Routledge (first published December 6th 1996)
ISBN
0415123291 (ISBN13: 9780415123297)
Edition Language
English
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Jan 01, 2009Alison rated it it was amazing
Love it love it love it. The first two sections were more difficult for me to digest fully, but the use of fairy tales in the third section ties it all together beautifully...the clinical case studies and comparisons of psychological theories in the first two sections combined with the use of fairy tales in the third illustrate the author's premise that there is an archtypal "daimonic" spirit that protects the traumatized individual/ego from further harm.
A few months ago while reading this book I thought of a friend I had become somewhat distant from. I thought of how entrenched he was in his world of dark fantasy; Norse mythology, Dungeons and Dragons, and other themes of adventure, darkness, and struggle. He seemed to me to be so entrenched in that world of dark fantasy that he was not really able to be present in this world. The day after reading and thinking of him I went to work and learned that this friend had commited suicide. This book helped me to understand the importance of Bryan's taking refuge in his dark world of fantasy as a way of surviving. And yet the survival was only for a part of himself; not the whole. Kalsched describes the archetypal process that one must go through in order to become fully whole, and to bridge the gap between the human and the divine. And this process, as illustrated in the archetypal themes of all major religions, entails a journey filled with suffering. It saddens me that Bryan was not able to bridge this gap...the horrors of his childhood - and perhaps the archetypal daimon within him - caused him to take permanent refuge in his dark fantasy world...the cost of the friction between that world and reality was his own life.
Kalsched notes that there are "always" forces or entreaties from the "concrete" world that beckon one away from the world of fantasy, and that these are the opportunities we must take to go forward on the journey, and to leave behind the safety and comfort of the internal world we create for ourselves.
This book has helped me to understand and increase my level of empathy -for friends, myself, patients - for the resistance that is shown in the process of growth. Resistance in therapy and in relationships is extremely challenging, and often frustrating. This book offers a way to view this resistance as form of survival for the traumatized individual.
I highly, highly recommend it to anyone interested in how childhood trauma effects the psychological and spiritual dimensions of development...and how difficult it is for us to leave behind those magical worlds of fantasy that we create in order to survive. (less)
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Nov 14, 2015☘Misericordia☘ ~ The Serendipity Aegis ~ ⚡ϟ⚡ϟ⚡⛈ ✺❂❤❣ rated itit was amazing
Shelves: favorites
Increadible read on the mechanisms of dissociational protection of self from trauma.
What astounded me most:
- reference to an angel not allowing a child to come into a room where she would fin her father after his suicide,
- reference to a child who would reconstruct an escape world from bits from books and various literary worlds.
Overall illuminating read and a must re-read. Such a profound work cannot be intellectualised in one sitting.
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Aug 15, 2008Sarah rated it it was amazing
This book completely re-shaped my thinking around the way that that archtypal, or primitive, brain responds to physical and psychological trauma. It takes a while to get through but it's worth it. If you're at all interested in this field, you MUST incorporate this book into your learning. However, I suggest you pick up your highlighter and post-its before reading; there are many brilliant insights and quotes you will want to mark!
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Oct 26, 2009Sandy rated it it was amazing
I’ve read this book 3 times: 2004, 2010 and today I just finished it for the third time. As I set it down, gratitude and calm arise.This is a profoundly intense and thorough study of trauma and it provides ways the therapist can guide her patient to healing. Kalsched is at times very dense, requiring multiple reads of the same page until it is clearly understood. The effort is well worth it! This book has helped me more than any other to understand the archetypal underpinnings of depression, melancholy and disassociation. Although the pages are tattered and many sentences highlighted, this book will be read by me yet again in a few years. Like Jung, Von Franz and Hollis, Kalsched invites us into a depth of awareness about life in all its beauty and suffering. (less)
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Nov 25, 2015Isaac rated it really liked it
Shelves: psychology, jungian, mental-or-physical-health
Some of my favorite excerpts from The Inner World of Trauma – Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit - by Donald Kalsched
The psyche’s natural anesthesia for the “cumulative trauma” in a childhood such as this renders most patients incapable of remembering specific traumatic events, much less experiencing them on an emotional level in analysis. Such was the case with Mrs. Y. We talked about the depravation in her early life, but we could not recover it experientially. Often, in my experience, it is not until some aspect of the early traumatic situation emerges in the transference that analyst and patient are given emotional access to the real problem… pg. 20
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If we understand “killing” in dreams, as an obliteration of awareness or profound dissociation, then we see that the psyche of the traumatized person cannot countenance re-exposure of the same vulnerable part-self representation as (apparently) occurred in the original traumatic situation. The original humiliating shame must be avoided at all costs. The price, however, is severance from the potentially “corrective” influence of reality. Here we have the psyche’s self-care system gone mad.
Like the immune system of the body, the self-care system carries out its functions by actively attacking what it takes to be “foreign” or “dangerous” elements. Vulnerable parts of the self’s experience in reality are seen as just such “dangerous” elements and are attacked accordingly. These attacks serve to undermine the hope in real object-relations and to drive the patient more deeply into fantasy. And just as the immune system can be tricked into attacking the very life it is trying to protect (auto-immune disease), so the self-care system can turn into a “self-destruct system” which turns the inner world into a nightmare of persecution and self-attack. Pg. 24
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…She found great resistance in herself which she could not rationally explain but which, we were able to discover, represented her resistance to being re-exposed to the potentially annihilating shame originating in her “forgotten” childhood trauma. It was as though her psyche was “remembering” an unthinkable similar event from long ago.
The reader will note that these assumptions about the dangers inherent in hoping for new life or relationship seem to be the same assumptions by which the patient’s inner terminator operates. In other words, in killing off her own feeling of hope, the patient acts in “identification with the aggressor” in herself – as if she is “possessed” by him. In this way the persecutory, anxiety-ridden inner world of trauma is recapitulated in outer life and the trauma victim is “compelled to repeat” the self-defeating behavior.
Such is the devastating nature of the trauma cycle and the resistance it throws up to psychotherapy. As Mrs. Y. and I worked through the resolution of her “trauma-complex” we encountered again and again the cycle of hope, vulnerability, fear, shame, and self-attack that always led to the predictable repetition of depression. Every moment of intimacy or personal accomplishment was an occasion for her daimon to whisper that it would all be taken from her, or that she didn’t deserve it, or that she was an imposter and a fraud and would soon be humiliated. Fortunately, we were able to work on this cycle in the intimacy of the transference/counter-transference relationship and could thereby “catch” the daimon at his tricks in the moment-to-moment changes of feeling during the sessions.
…In Jung’s language, we might say that the original traumatic situation posed such danger to personality survival that it was not retained in memorable personal form but only in daimonic archetypal form. This is the collective or “magical” layer of the unconscious and cannot be assimilated by the ego until it has been “incarnated” in a human interaction. As archetypal dynamism it “exists” in a form that cannot be recovered by the ego except as an experience of re-traumatization. Or, to put it another way, the unconscious repetition of traumatization in the inner world which goes on incessantly must become a real traumatization with an object in the world if the inner system is to be “unlocked.”
This is why a careful monitoring of transference/counter-transference dynamics is so important in our work with severe trauma. The patient wishes to depend upon the analyst, to “let go” of the self-care system, and get well again, but the system itself is much more powerful than the ego – at least initially, and so the patient inadvertently resists the very surrender to the process that would restore a feeling of spontaneity and aliveness. To hold these patients responsible for this resistance is a terrible mistake, not just technically but structurally and psycho-dynamically as well. The patient is already feeling blamed for some nameless “badness” inside, so interpretations which emphasize the patient’s “acting out” or avoidance of responsibility merely drive home the conviction of failure. In many respects it is not “they,” the patients, who resist the process at an ego level. Rather, their psyches are battlegrounds on which the titanic forces of dissociation and integration are at war over the traumatized personal spirit. The patient must, of course, become more conscious and responsible for a relationship to his or her tyrannical defenses, but this consciousness must include the humble realization that archetypal defense are much more powerful than the ego.
The prominence of the archetypal defense system explains why the “negative therapeutic reaction” is such a prominent feature in our work with these patients. Unlike the usual analytic patient, we must remember that for the person carrying around a dissociated trauma experience, integration or “wholeness” is initially experienced as the worst thing imaginable. These patients do not experience an increase of power or enhanced functioning when the repressed affects or traumatogenic experience first emerges into consciousness. They go numb, or split, or act out, somatize, or abuse substances. Their very survival as cohesive “selves” has depended upon primitive dissociative operations which resist integration of the trauma and its associated affects – even to the point of dividing up the ego’s “selves” into part-personalities. Pages 25,26,27
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Jung once said that “compulsion is the great mystery of human life” – an involuntary motive force in the psyche ranging all the way from mild interest to possession by a diabolical spirit. Pg. 28
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Archetypal defenses, then, allow for survival at the expense of individuation. They assure the survival of the person, but at the expense of personality development. Their “goal” as I have come to understand it, is to keep the personal spirit “safe” but disembodied, encapsulated, or otherwise driven out of the body/mind unity – foreclosed from entering time and space reality. Instead of slowly and painfully incarnating in a cohesive self, the volcanic opposing dynamisms of the inner world become organized around defensive purposes, constituting a “self-care system” for the individual. Instead of individuation and the integration of the mental life, the archaic defense engineer’s dis-incarnation (dis-embodiment) and dis-integration in order to help a weakened anxiety-ridden ego to survive, albeit as a partially “false” self. Pg. 38
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Oct 29, 2014Mike Kirakossian rated it really liked it
An inspiring approach to analytical psychology, sheds light on early trauma synthesizing the core of most dissociative and borderline disorders. Very much enjoyable where the author tackles the inner working of the self-care system in the human psyche and how it torments the inner world of a traumatized patient for the preservation of a vital part of the personality from total disintegration through clinical cases anchoring them to mythology.
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Sep 25, 2016Justinas rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Shelves: psychology-classics
1) Knyga įtikinanti. Autorius pirmiausiai pristato savo požiūrį, pagrindžia jį pavyzdžiais, tada apžvelgia, ką apie tai yra sakę kiti tyrėjai. Paskutinėje dalyje interpretuoja pasakas.
2)Buvo sunkoka priprasti prie terminų gausos ir atsekti, kas ką reiškia. Kurie terminai reiškia tą patį dalyką, kurie skirtingą. Praverstų papildoma pagalbinė knygos dalis apie terminų reikšmes.
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Sep 08, 2010Diana rated it it was amazing
Excellent and insightful book on how victims of trauma end of becoming self-traumatizers. Jungian-based psychology, including some really interesting interpretations of a handful of fairy tales.
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Oct 31, 2018Daniel rated it it was amazing
I found this book in a local public library. I will definitely re-read it in several months and I might be coming back to it throughout my life.
The book describes how people who experienced very traumatic events become psychologically impaired by what is called "self-defense mechanisms of the psyche. Fhe mechanisms create many complex fenomena, causing a person not to be fully mature psychologically.
As I undergo my own psychotherapy, I notice a lot of what the author writes about in my healing process.
If you want to understand what happens in traumatized people, this is definitely worth reading! (less)
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Jul 31, 2018Anonymous Writer rated it it was amazing
Eye-opening book about the way trauma is incorporated into the human soul through its mechanisms. The archetypal tapestry of the imaginary that opens up to several metaphorical meanings is representative to the understanding of the way trauma brings about the unprecedented coping mechanisms.
The golden treasure of the book consists not only in deciphering metaphors and associating them with trauma, but in the ingenious way trauma can be understood through such picturesque archetypes, deepening the insight about such phenomena with various epiphanies about its genesis. Mixing the area of psychiatry with the one of the symbolical imaginary proves to be the imprint of the Jungian psychotherapy, which the author firmly adheres. The second aim of this work is to reveal the treatment to the ailment, with the use of therapeutic stories, a re-interpretation of fairy tales that is linked to the traumatic episode, its consequences and its holistic integration into life.
If the mind hides its own unconscious, the world bears its own collective consciousness, as Jung strongly asserted in his works, building the foundation to his psychological school of thought. As dreams are spontaneous manifestations of the individual unconscious, that play a major role in bringing equilibrium to the mind, so fairy tales represent the hidden gem of the collective unconscious, the hazardous creation of the collective that is like a mirror of the collective soul. We can conclude that the role of fairy tales is to being wisdom and insight into the life of humans, while holding the principle of healing; it is the numinous archetype that frees the trapped soul.
Two metaphors prevail in the book, being at the heart of its themes. The first one is the one of the tower, an important motif that appears in various fairy-tales. Being both a prison and a space for protection, the tower speaks the language of fear, the fear of ever discovering the world, and shrinking into a cage, the inner world of phantasm. Here, the fantastic world of the inner self is presented as a refuge, as a way of dealing with pain. Closely related to introversion, the personality of the afflicted person tends to be prone to the realm of fantasy, the imaginary, the symbolical that also wants to usurp the role of reality, as the main negative effect.
The second symbolism is related to the reversed image of the guardian angel, that is is the "daimon", the most relevant icon for it. Metaphor for the unhealthy coping mechanisms, addictions, escapism etc, the archetypal figure of the angelic-devilish protector gives escape from pain in exchange for various valuable things, while also changing the spirit into something that is able to survive. The two-faced archetype has its own ambivalence.
The realm of the imaginary, with its symbolism, comes at the aid of healing post traumatic stress disorder, serving as a parallel universe that mirrors reality. Pictures will always appeal to the subconscious mind, the book it is like a hypnotic trance from which the reader becomes more sharp in understanding and applying a healing balsam to his inner wounds. The subconscious and the conscious, the reality and fiction, the real and the symbolical, they both mold into each other, switching the order, the center to the meaning the reader is supposed to decipher by re-interpreting his experience.(less)
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May 25, 2016Louise Jones rated it liked it
Shelves: health, mind
i suffer from ptsd so found this book so fascinating as so many think u get trauma ptsd from being in a war i can honestly say the war is in my head and feel as abt to explode it was so interesting reading about how the psyche splits which i think has happened to me my mum often says should have a scan of head i am waiting for emdr treatment which somehow put s the head back together !!!!!!!!!!! I LOVED THE WAY STORIES WERE ADDED TO THIS BOOK BUT at times a difficult read because of circumstances and the way needed my concentrating head on (less)
February 25, 2017
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I'm a psychiatrist, veteran, author, and have launched a non-profit and regional inpatient/outpatient PTSD Treatment Program. I hung on every word in this book.
The value lies in the precise ability to capture the thoroughly real, private experience that a trauma survivor lives at the edge of the conscious, unconscious and dream interfaces. It's philosophical but easy to read for anyone with at least an honest, high school-level reading ability.
MANY of my patients, probably 90% or more, profess a Christian world view (I'm in the US "bible belt") and I can't help but notice the striking themes that run through their entire life stories. Most believe that there are spiritual explanations for the things that have been allowed to happened to them, such as the devil trying to steal their testimony. Childhood trauma of all types, spoken and unspoken messages from caregivers growing up, traumas in adult life - often all meld into the core beliefs that are usually discussed in cognitive approaches to PTSD. This work tells the same story from the patient's perspective.
If you think there are spiritual, metaphysical, or existential purposes to what you or your patients have experienced, you'll want to read this book. I would caution Christians immature in their faith or unread in their bible education to read it, take notes, and ask your questions to a trusted, biblically-based person in your church so that you can take these powerful lessons to heart safely. It's quite potent.
The value lies in the precise ability to capture the thoroughly real, private experience that a trauma survivor lives at the edge of the conscious, unconscious and dream interfaces. It's philosophical but easy to read for anyone with at least an honest, high school-level reading ability.
MANY of my patients, probably 90% or more, profess a Christian world view (I'm in the US "bible belt") and I can't help but notice the striking themes that run through their entire life stories. Most believe that there are spiritual explanations for the things that have been allowed to happened to them, such as the devil trying to steal their testimony. Childhood trauma of all types, spoken and unspoken messages from caregivers growing up, traumas in adult life - often all meld into the core beliefs that are usually discussed in cognitive approaches to PTSD. This work tells the same story from the patient's perspective.
If you think there are spiritual, metaphysical, or existential purposes to what you or your patients have experienced, you'll want to read this book. I would caution Christians immature in their faith or unread in their bible education to read it, take notes, and ask your questions to a trusted, biblically-based person in your church so that you can take these powerful lessons to heart safely. It's quite potent.
August 13, 2016
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Every word is perfectly chosen. I am overwhelmed with the intelligence of the content and the care with which it is presented. What a groundbreaking and profound book. Deep for the well read yet clear enough for the new reader. I'm going to regret finishing it.
August 24, 2017
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Misses help me understand on an even deeper level and with a lot more information how to help those that suffer from PTSD from childhood traumas. There is information in there that would assist Veterans as well or people who are working with veterans and there PTSD.
August 6, 2014
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
It was a hard read for me due to the emotional contents in the book. It was very helpful to me in terms of coming to terms with myself and the events I have been through. It gave me a better understanding of my own inner working. Great book for anyone trying to shed some light on early childhood traumas, in my opinion.
July 25, 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Fascinating application of Jungian psychology (in particular) that I wish I'd discovered earlier, though for me it feels like a synchronicity (besides the illuminating subject matter, the author lives in hometown, not far away!). Lucidly written, very accessible, compelling. A must-read for "lay people" and analysts/analysands alike who seek understanding of depth psychology.
September 27, 2017
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
This was one of my favorite books while working on my PhD in psychology. It is an incredibly insightful look into the heads of those who have experienced childhood trauma.
May 31, 2015
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
A well written work that let's us see trauma from a deepened perspective. It also opens up for ways of healing that go beyond the masking surface fixes.
January 17, 2015
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Very interesting, revealing book. Exposes the self hatred that abuse victims use to continually keep themselves down, the internalized abusive parent.
