The analytical situation and setting encourage the return of confusion, and the analyst has access to the subject’s private world. With sexual abuse, the Fantasy scene is crushed by that of the act. Confusion is fed by denial on the part of the entourage and by a disavowal of the traumatic experience. Transference helps one gain access to a time when the thread of fantasy can be picked up again, thanks to the psychotherapist’s affection. It is important that the disavowal not recur during the session.
Archives par mot-clé : Abuse
Sarah Michot, Catherine Matha: the cry of silences: with covered words mots
This article will attempt to approach the issue of silences and their role in abuse, especially incest. It suggests that we examine the way that these are present in the transference relationship as the locus of an enactment of trauma and as an attempt to subjectivate the unsayable. These considerations are supported by an account of the early months of a psychotherapeutic treatment with an older adolescent girl, whose silences didn’t fail to make noise.
Adolescence, 2025, 43, 2, 223-232.