Integrative Trauma Treatment: Expanding the Psychoanalytic Frame

Abstract

Psychological trauma is a human condition that has been much addressed in psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice both historically and contemporaneously. Our purpose in discussing extra-analytic ideas and techniques and presenting clinical examples of their use is to introduce recently developed efficient and effective ways to resolve traumatic experiences that can be readily incorporated into psychoanalytic/psychodynamic practice. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Somatic Experiencing (SE) are the two primary modalities described in the two integrative trauma treatment cases presented. Both of these modalities utilize focused points of entry into implicit memories and self-states and both offer a significant expansion in clinical effectiveness to the authors’ shared relational psychoanalytic orientation. The cases, which include process notes, illustrate two different ways of moving patients along a trajectory to trauma resolution and post-traumatic growth.