When relational trauma strikes the developing psyche of a child, a split sometimes occurs in which a wounded and “innocent” part of the self retreats into the unconscious where it continues to live in suspended animation as a lost soul–often represented symbolically in archetypal material as a lost or orphaned ‘child.’ Deprived of this lost core of aliveness, the outer personality struggles to survive in a “de-animated” world, often becomes depressed, and sometimes seeks psychotherapeutic help. Depth Psychotherapy offers the opportunity for renewed contact with the lost soul and hence for renewed feeling-life, creativity, and relatedness—but not without fierce resistance thrown up by the psyche’s defensive powers.
How the psychotherapy process invites the lost soul back into relationship, in the face of these defenses will be the focus of this lecture and discussion. Through a series of clinical vignettes and relational moments, as well as in typical fairy tales and mythological motifs, Dr. Kalsched will show how the splitting and dissociation occasioned by early trauma, are gradually healed in the evolving process of depth psychotherapy.
