‘The Mind in Fragments: The Neuroscientific, Developmental, and Traumatic Roots of Dissociation and Their Implications for Clinical Practice’

Early relational trauma has a life-long impact on a person’s psychological and emotional development. Dissociation is both a defensive process against unbearable experience but also the result of the neuro-biological damage that trauma causes. The differing views in the psychotherapy world over the relative importance of dissociation and repression have their historical roots in the fundamentally different models of the mind offered by Freud and Jung. I would look at the history of the concept of dissociation from Janet to Jung and then to psychology research by Van der Kolk and others, showing that Jung’s ideas anticipated many modern developments in the concept of dissociation. I shall link these to current neuroscientific models of dissociation and discuss the modifications to psychoanalytic technique that are necessary when working with severely dissociative patients.