Paper Session B
1. Survival and Recovery:
Self Psychological Considerations
Presenter: |
Anna Ornstein, MD |
Discussant: |
Ruth Gruenthal, MSS |
Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program
Overview
This paper consists of three parts: 1. Review of relevant literature. The paper reviews and briefly summarizes the psychoanalytic literature of the consequences of the Holocaust trauma. The review serves the purpose to indicate how the absence of the empathic listening perspective had resulted in the exclusive emphasis on psychopathology in this patient population affecting not only the survivors but subsequent generations as well. 2. The psychology of adaptation to extreme conditions. The paper explicates the psychology of extreme conditions to indicate how the mode of adaptation to these conditions served as a bridge between pre-Holocaust personality organization and the survivor’s adaptation to post-war conditions. 3. The process of recovery and a clinical example. The paper’s major emphasis is on the process of recovery. A clinical example offers a sample of the manner in which survivors attempted to integrate their traumatic memories and the manner in which the therapist participated in this process.