Psychoanalytic Exploration of Social Trauma

Cristina Călărășanu is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in Romania. She is president of the Romanian Association for the Psychoanalysis of Group and Family Links, IACFP (International Association of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis) General Secretary and Scientific Council Member, EFPP (European Federation of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy) Board Member and Chair of the Couple and Family Section.Ulrich Schultz-Venrath is Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University of Witten/Herdecke, Germany, and a psychoanalyst and training group analyst, working in private practice in Cologne, Germany. Until March 2021, he was chair of the group section of EFPP.Hansjorg Messner is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in London, UK. He is a senior member of the BPF (British Psychoanalytic Council) and BPC (British Psychotherapy Foundation), as well as Vice President and Chair of the adult section in the EFPP and board member of the federation.

"This is an impressive book of high relevance for the general audience. Social traumata – from marital and family violence, from rapes to warfare – burrow deeply into psychic structure, personal and group identity, into our ability to learn and love and to enjoy new experiences. Violence makes people silent. Primo Levi's horrific experience was that no ear wanted to listen what had been done to him in Auschwitz. Being silenced is a new social trauma. This book valuably contributes to the task to open public reception and therapeutic ears to what has been silenced – it’s a must-read for the future of the helping professions."Michael B. Buchholz, Professor, International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin, Germany"First delivered in 2018, these selected psychoanalytic reflections on the problem of social trauma are needed even more urgently in 2022. Focused on the clinical aspects of working with persons who have experienced the acute pain of forced immigration, separation, and loss (and many more), in both individual and group forms of treatment, this book will be necessary to everyone engaged in psychoanalytic psychotherapy – as a guideline, as inspiration, and as a source of support."Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, PhD, International Psychoanalytic University, Berlin, Germany

• Part I: Trauma Stories and History 1. Finding my Song: Trauma, Discontinuity and the Large Group 2. Recovering Dignity: the remarkable history of Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. Goldowski 3. A wound within a wound within a wound: Social Dreaming in Jerusalem 4. Scenarios of the Social Traumata in the post-communist Romanian Cinema Part II: Group Identity and Social Trauma 5. Group-analytic identity challenged by Social Trauma 6. Experience of Large Group at the National Congress of Serbian Psychotherapists Part III: Social Trauma in the Consulting Room 7. The echoes of Social Trauma in the consulting room 8. Recalls of the traumatic and pacts of denial in psychoanalytic group psychotherapy 9. Bequeathing Trauma 10. Rapid Social Change and Individual Identity Part IV: Migration and the Paths of Trauma 11. Telemachus' predicament: trauma and emotional rupture in the relationship between immigrants and their left behind children 12. Subtle paths of trauma in migrating families Part V: Posttraumatic Conditions: new theoretical and clinical approach 13. Psychotherapy of Posttraumatic Conditions 14. The impact of Social Trauma on Group-analytic Theory 15. Traumatic Experiences: Restoring Mentalizing in Group Psychotherapies Part VI: Pandemics and the outer world traumatic impact 16. The child, the adolescent and the therapist: playing and the pandemic reality 17. Estrangement and intimacy in the time of zoom 18. Distance, fear and intimacy in COVID Time