TRAUMA, IDENTIFICATION AND HISTORICAL CONTENT - ON THE NECESSITY OF INCLUDING LEGACIES OF NATIONAL-SOCIALISM IN THE PROCESS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC INTERPRETATION

Early psychoanalysis and its treatment techniques were dominated by th e concern to bring to light repressed early traumatic memories of infa ncy and, make the patient aware of them. Today, this approach has been largely superseded by the conviction that the via regia for uncoverin g unconscious conflicts is the exclusive analysis of transference and countertransference in the here-and-now of the psychoanalytic situatio n. Focussing on the Nazi past in Germany and the traumatic effects of this heritage on the second and third generation, Bohleber advocates i ntegrating the reconstruction of this historical reality into the inte rpretation process, the only way of breaking down the pathogenic logic of the real trauma being that of recall and explicit testimony The re construction of traumatic reality encourages the essential distinction between reality and fantasy and makes it possible for the patient to work on them both at a secondary level, as the author demonstrates wit h reference to case vignettes. This reconstruction helps in recognizin g and hence preventing transgenerational identifications with elements of Nazi ideology.