THE TRAUMATIZED THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP - PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION IN PSYCHOTHERAPY AS COMMUNICATION AND CONFLICT RELIEF

The usual psychoanalytic-psychotherapeutic relationship can become a r elationship trap for patient and therapist. The usual therapeutical re lationship offer consists of reviving pathogenic experiences in the th erapeutical relationship and working these through. Traumatized patien ts will subject their therapists to similar communication and relation ship experiences they themselves made: double-binds, taboos of thinkin g and perceiving, confusion, stalemate situations, and irreconcilable dilemmas. If it is not possible to achieve a meta level the therapy be comes a retraumatization with changing roles. The therapy also becomes a relationship trap if an offer of maturing later is made in the ther apeutic relationship, but the therapist is unable to give any developm ent incentives. A third relationship trap consists of the therapist ha ving to really remain auxiliary ego and self object in order to be eff ective if he is not successful at making the early transfer. It is pro bably more effective and less dangerous if traumatic experiences are l eft in imaginary space and worked through with imaginative techniques. In the therapeutic relationship the communicative part of projective identification should be accepted and interpreted, but the conflict re lief part should be tactfully and consistently rejected. Then the ther apeutic relationship can become a model for a not-traumatized form of relationship.