Chapter and Presentations by Arthur Blank (USA)

Bion’s Reverie and Meditation in Psychoanalytic Therapy of Trauma

(2018). In Schreiber, Evelyn, ed., Healing Trauma: The Power of Listening, pp. 137-149. New York: International Psychoanalytic Books.

The psychic wounds produced by extreme trauma can be thought of as due to incapacity to symbolize and process experience, and recovery may consist of the growth of new capacities to symbolize and process. Freud described the psychoanalytic method as involving communication of the unconscious minds of two persons. The work of Bion and observations of early child and caregiver interactions have clarified the constituents of unconscious communication. The questions remain as to how psychoanalytic therapy facilitates growth with the patient of that which has not been present, to enable processing of traumatic experience, and what changes within the analyst promote this capacity in the patient. We here offer thoughts about the effects of free association, and the use of concepts of container/contained, reverie, and the practice of meditation, to promote new capacities in analyst and patient.

https://ipbooks.net/product/healing-trauma-the-power-of-listening-edited-by-evelyn-jaffe-schreiber/

Presentations:

“Denial and Trauma: Learning From History”

Presented at the Annual Colloquium, Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, Washington D.C., January 19, 2019

“Vet Centers in the United States: 1969-2018 – A New Paradigm”

Presented at a conference of the National Federation of Former Foreign Missions and the Center of Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology of the Lyon 2 University (“Les centres psychosociaux pour les ancients combattants aux Etats-Unis 1969-2018,” Colloque international, FNAME-OPEX (Federation Nationale des Ancients Missions Exterieurs) et le Centre de Recherche en Psychologie et Psychopathologie Clinique de l’Universite Lumiere Lyon 2.) Lyon, France, January 11, 2019.

Arthur Blank, Jr. M.D.
Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
George Washington University
Email Arthur Blank Jr.
www.arthurblankmd.com