Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A version of this article first appeared in Caduceus 2006 - issues 69 & 70;
And a different version is to appear in Psychological Perspectives (without illustrations).
Text Donald Kalsched and Daniela Sieff, 2008
Unlocking the Secrets
of the Wounded Psyche:
The miraculous survival system that is also a prison
Daniela Sieff interviews Jungian analyst Donald Kalsched about the survival system a child
develops to protect him or herself from psychological wounding, and discovers how that
survival system can cause more damage than the original wound.
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Yellowheart and a Devil by Jim Dine 1986 Jim Dine, courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery
If a childs life is sufficiently traumatic to require a lot get turned out towards the abusers, gets turned
of dissociation, and if the painful experiences have not inwards and the energy contained in that anger
been made understandable by the childs caretakers, is used to create a self-blaming system that splits the
the childs interpretation of its own experience psyche between a supposedly inadequate inner
becomes deeply distorted (by the self-care system). child and the critical inner protector. This splitting
Traumatised children strive to understand why they of the psyche is a violent process, just like the
are being neglected, abused or shamed, and nearly splitting of the atom, and the fallout is equally
every traumatised child ends up believing that s/he is deforming and toxic. The split is cemented into the
in pain because s/he is fundamentally at fault: I fabric of the childs developing life, and a (false)
would not be suffering this if I was an adequate shame-based identity becomes the filter through
person There must be something fundamentally which the child (and later on the adult) will see his
wrong with me Mummy / Daddy is right: I am not or her entire life. Simone Weil wrote that the false
loveable I am not good enough The child god turns suffering into violence; the true god turns
probably comes to this self-blaming conclusion violence into sufferingi. The self-care system of the
because (a) this is the explanation given to the child by traumatized child becomes the false god that turns
its parents either explicitly or implicitly; (b) the suffering into violence.
child can wrestle an (illusionary) feeling of control to
combat his or her helplessness: If only I can become A client that I worked with remembered that when
good enough then my pain will stop, and if I cant she was four her family moved to its first real home.
become good enough then maybe I can hide my self She had been promised a room of her own, with a
well enough to stop the pain; and (c) it is too risky backyard in which to play. On arriving at the new
for the dependent child to blame the parent on whom it home, my client spontaneously picked a bunch of
depends for its survival and who it needs to idealize as flowers to give to her mother to show her
good and loveable. excitement and joy. However, her mother realised
that these flowers had come from the neighbours
Given the circumstances, this is the best that the yard and went mad. She asked her bewildered
child can do and in its own way this process is a daughter: What is the matter with you? How could
miracle because it does keep the child alive when the you do that? You must go and apologise to the
alternative would be psychological annihilation. neighbour now! The love, excitement and
However, the repercussions are tragic. The childs spontaneous joy that the young girl was trying to
anger, which in more healthy circumstances would express got cruelly quashed, and the result inside the
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little girl was shame. (Shame seems to be the affect we child enters the domain of trauma. This can happen
experience when our very life-energy meets with no through sexual or physical abuse, but it can also
response or a negative response from others upon who happen when the childs needs are continually
we depend.) Episodes like this, which happen in denied, when the child is neglected, when the child
every childs life, dont matter too much if they are is not seen for whom s/he is or when the child is
occasional occurrences or if the mothers empathy shamed and made to feel inadequate. Anything that
intervenes, but this client was frequently shamed when leaves the child feeling that the essence of who they
expressing her emotions, and in time she learnt to are is defective or bad or missing in essential
dissociate. Her self-care-system buried the vibrant, value and therefore at risk of annihilation is
spontaneous feeling child while another part of her traumatic.
grew up prematurely, developing a self-sufficient
armour and becoming identified with her very good DS: You describe the psychological self-defence
mind. As a consequence of this split my client began system as archetypal; what is an archetypal
to hate both her body, with its emotional feelings, and system?
the expressive little girl who lived in that body and
whose neediness seemed to cause all her trouble. By DK: Archetypal energy is it is rooted deep in the
the time she was in her mid-30s she had become a unconscious and it is archaic, primitive, and also
very successful journalist, but by then she had typical. Archetypal energies and affects are not
developed bulimia, and her secret world of binging easily assimilated by the conscious mind. They can
and vomiting proved to her that deep down she really be luminous or dark, angelic or demonic, but
was an inadequate failure. By this point she was because they exist in raw, unmediated form they tend
living in a world that was severely compromised by to be over-powering. Volcanic rage is an example.
her self-care system. It was a pathological, dissociated When it pours through, youre possessed. Its high
and split world that caused her immense pain, but it voltage stufflets say 440 volts, and in order to be
was a world that her psyche had had to create in order integrated into a conscious human ego this high
to survive her childhood. voltage needs to be transformed into a more
manageable 220 volts. If archetypal energy is not
DS: You talk about the traumatised psyche becoming mediated by human relationship and consciousness,
self-traumatising can you elaborate on this? it cant be integrated into ones normal identity and
then when triggered, it can knock the ego out, so that
Once the inner psychological protector has been the person effectively becomes possessed by it.
constellated it will fight for its life, and it will do all
it can to prevent (what it believes will be) potential Because archetypal energy is located deep in our
re-traumatisation. In doing so, it becomes an unconscious, the psyches way of bringing it into
unwitting and violent inner persecutor inflicting consciousness is to personify and project it: characters
more pain, trauma and abuse upon oneself than the in myths, fairy tales, theatre and film portray
original trauma, and external world, ever did. I like archetypes; our unconscious imagination projects an
to use the analogy of auto-immune disease. In such archetypal veneer onto real human beings such as
diseaseAIDS for example--the killer T-cells celebrities or politicians whom we either idealize or
think theyre attacking destructive intruders but diabolize. Archetypes operate on the basis of polar
theyve been tricked and are really attacking healthy opposites or extremes; one is good or bad, strong or
tissue. In the same way, the protector/persecutor weak, victim or perpetratorfundamentalist
thinks the excitement or hope presented by a new life categories we might say. Such figures populate our
opportunity is a dangerous threat to its control, and dreams and fantasies, and are heard through some of
so attacks and demoralizes the person. This makes our subtle, or not-so-subtle, inner voices.
the pain carried by the trauma survivor much worse.
In the self-defence system the caretaking side is
In short, the traumatised psyche becomes self- typically personified by an inner figure who swings
traumatising. The self-defence system ends by turning between being protective and being persecutory.
against the very person it is supposed to be protecting. The protector may take the form of an angel, a wise
old man, a fairy friend or a great good mother who
DS: What do you mean by trauma? accompanies the child and gives him strength, but
because this inner figure will do whatever it has to
DK: In terms of the psyche, trauma is any experience do in order to prevent a repeat of the original,
that causes unbearable pain or anxiety. Pain is unbearable experience it can just as easily morph
unbearable when it cannot be metabolised. When a into an axe-man, an evil angel, a devil, a rigid, cold
childs sense of self is repeatedly threatened, and the stone statue, an extra-terrestrial or a terrorist with
child has no way to process the perceived threat, the an AK47. The Phantom of the Opera vividly
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The Good and Evil Angels by William Blake c.1795/1805 Tate, London
portrays both sides of this archetype in relationship to DS: For me, a verse of The Rose, a song sung
an orphaned girl. In the film I, Robot the by Bette Midler, depicts this dynamic in a very
protector/persecutor is personified as the central poignant way:
computer. Alternatively, the personification of this
Its the heart, afraid of breaking,
psychological system may exist as a subtle figure that that never learns to dance.
lurks just below conscious awareness. It could be a Its the dream, afraid of waking,
background voice that leads you to believe that you that never takes a chance.
are not good enough and should not risk exposing Its the one who wont be taken,
yourself in the world. Or it might inflate you with who cannot seem to give,
self-importance. And the soul, afraid of dying,
that never learns to live.
Being an unmediated, unintegrated, magical system,
once the archetypal self-defences have been DK: Yes, indeed. Those last lines are especially
mobilised the system ossifies into a closed, rigid relevant because dying means surrender to the
paradigm which is shut off from human influence. bodyto ones affects and this means a certain
The system resists being educated. This leads to amount of voluntary sufferingsomething the self-
tragedy: because the system is stuck at the original care system is designed to prevent.
trauma it doesnt take account of the fact that as the
child grows, other defences become available, and so D.S. How does the self-care system keep the
the innocent, creative, relational, essence of the child terrified soul away from the supposedly
is locked away in a prison for safe-keeping for ever. overwhelming dangers of life? What are the
The energy that should be propelling the child to methods used to achieve this end?
grow into who he or she really is, is diverted into the
process of survival, and living with a Survival Self DK: The primary method used by the inner care-
at your core is like living in a prison. Paradoxically, taker is the self-traumatising inner voice that I have
in the name of survival, the archetypal self-care already mentioned. This inner voice is determined
system says NO! to life. to prevent the hidden essential self from venturing
into a world where it may be re-traumatised so it
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sits at the edges of consciousness and says things determined to keep Rapunzel (safely) out of real life.
like: You are not lovable (i.e. Drop the hope of She is known as a sorceress, i.e., a spell-casteran
being loved because it is too risky)! You have expert in trance states. Peter Pans Neverland may
nothing of real interest to say (You cant give that have been created to serve a similar role. David, the
lecture because you could be exposed as stupid)! The favoured elder brother of James Barrie, died when
more somebody gets to know you the less they will James was seven. Barries mother became depressed
trust you (Dont let anybody close to you, because depression. In the fictionalised version of Barries
then you cant be abandoned again)! The result of life, portrayed in the film Finding Neverland,
these inner attacks is often a deep sense of Barrie is describing this episode and he poignantly
hopelessness and despair that takes over the person says: that was the end of the boy James. I used
a sense that life is for others and not for oneself. to say to myself that he had gone to Neverland. In
other words the film portrays Neverland and Peter
However, this negative inner voice is not the only Pan as the fantastical creation of the young James
method of self-defence used by the archetypal Barrie, who needed a safe, magical world into which
system, and although other strategies are less he could retreat, following overwhelming trauma.
immediately obvious, they are equally powerful, life- Stories about fairies stealing children are another
denying, self-destructive and self-traumatising. way that this archetypal dynamic has come to light,
and away with the fairies means literally that for a
One key self-defence strategy is to create additional traumatised child! S/he has taken refuge in the
layers of psychological splitting and dissociation. world of fantasy, imagination and dreams. The final
Not only does the child split into a hidden inner child few lines of Yeatss poem, tellingly entitled The
and a protector/persecutor, but the actual traumatic Stolen Child, beautifully expresses this:
experiences are dismembered so that the experience
For he comes, the human child
is not felt. When a jigsaw puzzle is lying in 500 To the waters of the wild
pieces you do not see the big picture. The secondary With a faery, hand in hand,
dissociation caused by the self-care system operates From a world more full of weeping than he can
on similar lines. Many abused and traumatised understand.
children report a feeling of not being there during
their ordeals. They learn how to move out of their There is something miraculous in psyches
bodies so that they dont feel the pain of what is capacity to invent fantastical worlds which give a
happening to them. They become a disembodied threatened spirit a meaningful, albeit magical,
observer; cut off from their experience, from their place in life and therefore some hope but a high
feelings and from their life in order to survive. They price has to be paid in terms of a persons
become zombie-like: dissociated from their adaptation to reality. When a temporary world of
experience, numbed and entranced. In one of her fantasy becomes a permanent inner state of being,
poems, Emily Dickinson described this powerfully: it takes over a persons life. At this point fantasy
There is a pain so utter has become a hypnotic spell that creates a
It swallows substance up comfortable prison, which encapsulates the
Then covers the Abyss with Trance person in limbo-land; neither dead, nor alive.
So Memory can step
Around across upon it Finally, the self-care system may take the
As one within a Swoon traumatised person into the substitute world of
Goes safely where an open eye addiction. Instead of real-life nourishment, the
Would drop Him Bone by Bone. system says have another drink or one more
The self-care system is the trance covering the chocolate brownie. I often use the image of a
unbearable abyss of the childs unmediated trauma hydroponic garden I once saw that was growing the
experience. And the trance comes up whenever the most incredible strawberries. Those plants had their
earlier trauma is triggered. roots in circulating water that was highly
mineralised it was like the ambrosia of the gods
Another method commonly used by the protector/ analogous to the mythic world of pure fantasy. The
persecutor is to encapsulate the person in fantasy. It is only problem was that these plants were slowly
too risky to live a real life and so the psychological losing their capacity to root in real soilin real life.
self-defence system recruits the inner imaginal world Addiction is similar: you are fed on the mind-
which can provide a vibrant private space, where the altering substitutes of pure spirit and so you have
sprit can live safe from the onslaughts of reality. In the the most magnificent experiences, or so you think.
fairy story of Rapunzel, the tower in which Rapunzel is But meanwhile you become weaker and weaker.
imprisoned represents the fantasy world, and the witch And the more you are fed by your addiction, the less
personifies the archetypal protector / persecutor who is able you become to take root in the world.
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From Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens by Arthur Rackham, c.1906/1910
primitive or rigid, but it will still limit
your potential and prevent you from
being fully alive.
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hard, but since then she has had a sense that she is DK: It takes great patience, great perseverance,
companioned, knowing that there is something in her and a willingness to suffer the unknown in
psyche that holds a larger picture of her whole self. ourselves and in the world.in short it takes great
That is very reassuring to her. tolerance for feelings and feelings are what the
self-care system is least tolerant of. For the trauma
It is my experience that the divine often comes to us survivor connecting to feelings is a very
through the broken places, through those split off frightening process. So we need compassionate
and shameful places which are almost always containers to do this worktherapy containers,
traumatic. When the exiled parts of us are re- friendship containers, religious containers.
membered, and re-collected, and we can welcome
them into our lives, there is profound healing. Everyone who has suffered trauma has a story of
When the banished parts of us return and we can their own suffering. The problem is that the
hold them with compassion, a sense of the divine original storyas told by the child to itselfis a
often enters our lives as a sense of wholeness. false, self-blaming, shameful victim/persecutor
story. Remember that the child who is looking for
meaning to explain his or her pain creates an
No one lives his life. almost universal story: It hurts because I am not
good enough, or have failed, or am bad. Such a
Disguised since childhood, partial and distorted story prevents the now grown
haphazardly assembled from voices and fears child from experiencing the unbearable pain that is
and little pleasures,
part of the real story. It also prevents the grown
we come of age as masks.
child from taking any personal responsibility for
Our true face never speaks. the healing of traumas wounds. Thus the story
has to be examined and re-assessed, most
Somewhere there must be storehouses commonly in the context of psychotherapy.
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armour or old carriages In the development of protector/persecutor system
or clothes hanging limply on the walls. the unbearable and unmediated suffering of the
child got turned to violence, directed inwards. The
Maybe all the paths lead there to the process of moving beyond the prison walls depends
repository of unlived things.
on transforming that violence back into its rightful
And yet, though you and I struggle against
suffering. To do that requires a lot of grief work in
this deathly clutch of daily necessity, relationship with a trusted other, and this is tricky
I sense there is this mystery because the self-care system has a whole story
All life is being lived. about the grievances you have suffered and how
Who is living it then? real people are not trustable etc. Mind you, these
grievances make a person quite miserable, but its a
Is it the things themselves, or something comfortable, familiar miseryneurotic suffering as
waiting inside them, like an unplayed contrasted to everyday misery, as Freud would say.
melody in a flute?
So in order to free one self of the prison of the self-
care system one has to distinguish between true
Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal to each other? grief and false, or superficial, grief.
Is it the flowers interweaving their fragrances
or streets, as they wind through time? DS: What is the difference between true and
false grief?
Is it the animals, moving, or the birds, that
suddenly rise up? DK: In therapy, when you start working with a
traumatised person, you have to help the person
Who lives it then? separate the chronic pain of the trauma-story they
God, are you the one who is living life?
come with from the often acute pain that follows
Rainer Maria Rilke; from Rilke's
when the innocent part of themselves is allowed
Book of Hours: Love Poems to God back into relationship. We live in a very
Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna therapeutic culture these days and almost
Macy, Riverhead Books 2005 everyone has a story about how they have been
victimized. The person is a survivor of incest, or
the child of an alcoholic, or a victim of physical
DS: How do we move beyond the prison of the self- abuse. Sometimes the person doesnt have a
care system? What is the way through this? trauma-story at all; instead he has an overriding
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conviction of his own inadequacy his own badness. DK: Thats very well expressed and original. And
In other words at some level the person feels a victim theres something else that hides in the shadows of
to him/her self. The conviction of badness, or the the system, and thats an authentic experience of
externally focused trauma-story, supposedly explains ones own innocence. The trauma survivor may tell
the persons pain, and as such it constitutes the a story about their suffering that includes
meaning s/he (or others) has made out of the innocence but its a kind of righteous or malignant
suffering. The pain that surrounds this meaning is innocence and often they dont really believe it.
what I call false grief. It is often endless and Underneath they feel convinced of their own innate
chronic, therefore worse than the genuine, but split- badness. Often they can see goodness and innocent
off and hidden pain that surrounds the original suffering in others but not in themselves. If they
childhood suffering. become therapists they are often passionate
advocates for the injustice and innocence in others
In psychotherapy, sharing and processing the pain of but cant get to it in themselves.
that self-care story is always the first step.
Necessary trust is often established in this way.an So to come back to your point, its hard to move away
important first stage in healing. But often the from blaming either others, or from blaming our
therapy gets bogged down at this stage because its supposed innate badness, and to find the courage
not the whole story and, it turns out, is actually and strength to move towards a place where we take
designed (by the self-care system) to prevent the responsibility for our own pain instead. Moreover,
deeper, original pain from surfacing. In the words of this vital shift is only possible if we are able to look
Emily Dickinson, the defensive system covers the at ourselves with deep compassion and forgiveness,
abyss with trance and the trauma story of this first realising that our collusion with the self-traumatising
stage in healing is central to that trance. Hidden system was the only way that we could ensure our
deeply behind the feeling of badness, or the psychological survival and the only way that we
conviction of being an innocent victim, is the more could protect the animating spark of life at our core.
profound original pain; the pain of the threatened
part of the childs psyche that had to go into hiding In other words, if we remain focused on our
for fear of annihilation. It is the pain of the lost badness, or on how we have been a victim to others
heart of the self that was innocent and yet suffered meanness in the external world, we remain stuck in
terribly. True grief really doesnt come up until that a false grief that goes nowhere. Then we dont get
innocent walled off part of us is able to come back to our more profound wounds: both the wounds that
into consciousness. Remember that the self-care were unbearable to us because we were so little,
systems whole reason for being is to isolate that and the wounds that our own self-care system
innocent regressed part of the self from the slings inflicted upon us to secure psychological survival.
and arrows of outrageous fortune. When we open Without opening to these depths we remain in the
to that deeper pain with self-compassion, we begin prison erected by the self-care system. However,
to cry the tears that bring real healing. when we are strong enough to open to the original
pain of our innocent self, and when we can take
DS: As I understand it, the trance created by seeing responsibility for how we have participated in the
ourselves as a victim to either our own innate cover-up of the original pain (how we have
badness or to an external source, also prevents colluded with the self-care system, as it were), we
healing because it shields the inner can open the doors to the lost spark of life that is
protector/persecutor from our awareness. Thus imprisoned within us. Then we feel true grief and
obscured, the protector/persecutor can hide in the we set out on the path of real healing. And heres
shadows, only to return as soon as some supposed the best part. If we can suffer that deeper pain
threat is detected. My understanding is that any really allow it in, and share it with another, then an
kind of victim or blame story allows us to avoid the unexpected dimension of the psyche opens to us. A
disturbing fact that it is our own traumatised psyche powerful healing presence makes itself felt.a
which has become self-traumatising, and that sense of real love and gratitude. Almost all
change will only become possible when we can mythology shows that the embracing of true
begin to see our own inner protector/persecutor, suffering brings a revelation of the divine. This is
appreciate the survival value of that system, but why (mythologically) the Christ child, the child of
accept that it is outdated and take the risk of letting light, is always born at the darkest time of the year
it go. Healing only becomes possible once we take in the least likely place, a stable. And why this
responsibility for the life-denying, limiting and self- same Christ figure finds a resurrected life in the
destructive system that we have constructed, and Spirit after volunteering to suffer real paineven
when we grieve for the trauma that our self-created deathin the service of truth.
defences have inflicted upon ourselves.
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The Hand-Coloured Viennese Heart V by Jim Dine 1979-80 Jim Dine, courtesy of the artist and Alan Cristea Gallery
DS: In order to reach that place of new life or shall we say that the little girl/boy inside the
healing, the whole story on which the person has patient, hidden from view, starts to make a new
built his or her life, and the system that enabled the attachment to a real person beyond the survival
child to survive, has to be dismantled. That is system. When this happens, the
terrifying. It does not change without enormous protector/persecutor is challenged, and the self-
resistance, pain, fear and a huge fight. defence system goes into over-drive. It will try to
sabotage the therapy and the relationship with the
DK: Yes, and it happens one step at a time; there is therapist anything to regain control. For
no quick way through. A person comes into therapy example, I was about to go on holiday and a client,
because something has happened that makes her /him who I had worked with for a year, finally let down
realise that s/he cannot continue as s/he is her self-sufficient, fortress-like defences. With
something needs to change. But understandably, tears in her eyes she said that she would miss me,
s/he is very ambivalent about giving up the defensive and her therapy, while I was away. In voicing this
belief system that has ensured survival. the client moved beyond the clutches of her self-
sufficient but isolating protector/persecutor. She
And this system is most often challenged when the took the risk of allowing her wounded, vulnerable
patient actually starts to care about the therapist.or and previously hidden child to come to the surface
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and to express its feelings for
another person. We then
discussed ways that she could
keep connected to me during
my holiday, but that night her
protector/persecutor returned
with a vengeance: she wrote me
a long letter explaining that she
could not continue therapy
because she had become too
dependent on me. Through
that letter a panicking
protector/persecutor tried to
backtrack by slamming the door
shut on our relationship. The
self-care system went all out to
prevent this woman from living
her need to engage in
meaningful relationships,
because as a child the only way
that she could survive was to
bury that need.
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betrayals and misunderstandings, the handless
However, because these silver hands come from the maiden is now exiled to the forest where she and
therapist they are only of use for a limited period of her son (named Sorrowful) live in genuine misery
time and eventually the client has to risk giving up and poverty, cared for by angelic beingsagain,
the silver hands in order to grow her own human support from the imaginal psyche. All the while,
hands. This transition is fraught with difficulties. the King is longing for her but cannot find her
The silver hands given to the client by the therapist and all the while, she is slowly growing her own
are not easily surrendered and they are prone to being hands.
hijacked by the self-care system in order to keep the
client safely away from her own unique life. In many cases, in the work with trauma survivors,
there is a series of crises like the one Ive just
The self-care system is often powerful enough to described in which the patient feels deeply
seduce the therapist into its fantasy world. When betrayed by the therapist. Feelings of betrayal can
you work with somebody and you see the life- result from the therapist saying something that the
denying system in which they are entangled, you patient does not want to hear, or they can be
want to help them, but it is all too easy to be pulled constellated when the apparent promise of
into an illusionary world and to keep feeding the endless love and togetherness is ruptured.
silver hands. Perhaps the therapist leaves town like the King
did. Perhaps the therapist is inattentive or does, or
For example, I had a client who would bring me a says, something that reveals the professional
nugget of gold every session; either an archetypal aspect of the relationship. Often this truth about
dream, or a profound piece of poetry. I was so the relationshipthat it is both loving and
excited by the material that I became bewitched. I professionalis too much for the child in the
was unwittingly entranced by a symbolic feast patient to bear. Whatever the trigger the patient
which was full of apparent meaning and growth, then withdraws. This withdrawal is engineered by
but which was actually a system that had been the self care system, the caretaking part of which
designed to keep her out of her life. When I now fills the patient with I told you sos and
noticed that nothing was changing in my clients how could you be so stupids etc. If the bond
outer life, and began to confront her, all hell broke between the therapeutic partners is strong enough
loose. She frequently flew into a rage; threw my these ruptures can be repaired and each time, an
books off shelves and hurled coffee cups against increment of the previously unbearable pain is
the walls of my office. Eventually, on MY experienced and becomes part of the patients
invitation, she called me at home at 3am one night, relational life. With each such rupture and repair,
after a terrifying dream and in a suicidal state. We the patient, now with a deeper connection to her
talked about her dream, but every time I helped her child Sorrowful, grows her own hands back. In
get to a calmer place she would revert back and others words, the previous dissociation is being
threaten to kill herself. Eventually something in bridged.
me snapped. I said: Your life is a sacred gift as
far as I am concerned, but what you do with it is DS: You have said that not everybody who has
your choice. I am not here to try to talk you into suffered trauma can make this tortuous journey
living! Then I hung up. Needless to say I had a into life. What is the difference between those
sleepless night wondering whether to call her back who can and those who cant?
or whether to call the police or an ambulance. I
waited anxiously the next morning to see if she DK: Ive often wondered that myself. Some
would be there for her appointment. But when she people will never be able to surrender the world
arrived she was much calmer and she thanked me created by the self-care system. Giving up what
for giving her power back. I had finally seen the has saved them in trauma, and reconnecting with
illusion that her self-care system had woven the underlying pain, is too much for them to bear.
around both of us to keep her (safely) out of life, They are happy with a partial healing and with the
and I had refused to participate in it. That had then silver hands provided by an external support
opened the door for her to start to grow her own system and who can blame them. Still others make
hands, but it was not an easy or pleasant process to the full journey into their own unique lives.
be part of! Certainly one of the important factors is whether a
therapist is present who can see through a
This transition from the artificial silver hands, to relational process with them. Its not easy and we
ones own human hands is a moment of urgency are only just beginning to know how to do this.
and in this fairy story it begins when the King must
go away on a long journey. Through a series of
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As far as internal factors, there is something about Donald Kalsched, PhD
will something innate a creative passion for is a Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist who has
life and desire to live all of it. There are also a private practice in Katonah, New York and in
environmental factors in early development. Has Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is a senior faculty
there been anybody on the side of life who could member and supervisor with the Inter-Regional
offer the child the love that was needed? You dont Society of Jungian Analysts and a training analyst at
need many people to keep that possibility alive for a the Westchester Institute for Training in
child: an uncle, or a good teacher who saw the child Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Bedford Hills,
who wanted to live. And that spark of life doesnt N. Y. His major book The Inner World of Trauma:
need a human being to keep it alive; it can find a Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit
safe haven through a special loved animal, through (Routledge, 1996) explores the interface between
music, art, nature. However, in order to make the contemporary psychoanalytic theory and Jungian
theory as it relates to clinical work with the survivors
tortuous journey into life a person does need to
of early childhood trauma. He has lectured widely on
have had some experience where that spark has
this and other subjects related to Analytical
been seen by another person. Psychology. Currently, he is at work on a new book
Trauma and the Soul, which will explore the
DS: You use fairy stories to illuminate the spiritual or mystical dimensions of psychoanalytic
creation and dissolution of the self-care system, work. He and his wife Robin, also a Jungian analyst,
however, fairy stories have happy-ever-after live in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the winter,
endings. Arent they misleading? My experience and summer in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada.
is that even if you go through one crisis where you
successfully take on the protector/persecutor, you
are very lucky if you get through six months Daniela Sieff, PhD
without coming face-to-face with it again! has a Masters in psychology and anthropology from
Ann Arbour and PhD in biological anthropology
DK: Fairy stories are a wonderful vehicle for from Oxford University. She spent several years
talking about the struggle of the soul through life, living in Tanzania doing anthropological research.
and even though they may not be realistic I think Since then she has produced documentaries for
that we all need stories with happy endings. The television, written articles and has completed the
happy ending is like the vanishing point in a leadership training program with the Marion
painting which gives it perspective. We may never Woodman Foundation. She is currently working on
get there, but it is the goal and it helps to know a book of interviews which will address emotional
where we are heading. The happy ending is peace wounding from both psychodynamic and scientific
where there was war freedom where there was perspectives. She lives on a farm outside of London,
imprisonment wakefulness where there was United Kingdom.
E-mail: Daniela@aladine.co.uk
trance love where there was hate wholeness
where there was fragmentation, suffering where
there was violence.
Acknowledgements
Sure, the protector/persecutor does keep returning if I would like to thank Donald Kalsched for all that he
you are on a journey of growth, and the happy put into this; it was a pleasure to work with him. I am
ending is misleading if it is understood in a grateful to Sarida Brown for inviting me to write this
for Caduceus, and for her invaluable editorial
superficial way or as a by-pass of the struggle with
suggestions which came with thought, care, and a
darkness and evil. But every time you are
desire to help make this interview all it could be. I am
successful in challenging the self-care system your also extremely grateful to Jim Dine for permission to
world expands, you take one more step towards use images of his art; Antony Gormley for permission
wholeness, your experience becomes a little fuller, to use images of his sculptures; and Philip Wilson,
and another glimmer of the divine spark returns to publisher of Michelangelo Sculpture for permission
animate your life. to reproduce the image of the Awakening Slave. Last,
but not least, a heart-felt Thank You to James
* * * * * Norich, PhD - without whom I would have neither
Reference recognised, nor begun to challenge, the self-care
i
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace Translated by system that operates within me.
Friedhelm Kemp, Munich 1952, p104
14
Awakening Slave by Michelangelo 1532?
Image reproduced with permission from Michelangelo Sculpture by
Rupert Hodson, published by Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 1999