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Psychotherapy in an Inpatient Ward
Published in Meidan Turel, Michael Siglag, Alexander Grinshpoon, Clinical Psychology in the Mental Health Inpatient Setting, 2019
Another theoretical concept that was particularly relevant with these two patients was identification with the aggressor. Identification with the aggressor was first developed by Sándor Ferenczi in 1932 (Ferenczi, 1949) to help understand early trauma. It was used in a slightly different way by Anna Freud 4 years later (Freud, 1992) and consequently taken forward by numerous psychoanalysts, including those who have studied the treatment of trauma (Frankel, 2002).
Pre-suicide states in adolescence
Published in Donald Campbell, Rob Hale, Working in the Dark, 2017
It is worth noting four defences, identified by Anna Freud (1936), which are prominent during adolescence: identification with the aggressor, asceticism, altruism and intellectualisation. Although identification with the aggressor is apparent in very young children, it re-emerges in adolescence when young people seek to defend against a dangerous sexual or aggressive individual by becoming the threatening object through identification or impersonation. The adolescent then projects threatening aggressive and sexual aspects back into the external world. As we said earlier, no person attempts to kill himself or herself who has not, in some way, felt that one or both parent rejected their body or wished him or her dead. Federn (1929) expressed it thus: ‘No one kills themselves who has not been wished dead by another.’ This experience is repeated in the provocation of neglect or rejection, which projects guilt associated with self-destructive impulses and is experienced by the adolescent as a sanction of the suicidal act.
Smooth Criminals: Mystified Desires and Their Pursuits in Leaving Neverland
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2021
Ferenczi’s (1933) concept of identification with the aggressor further helps with making sense of these phenomena. Addressing the common misconception that abused children typically protest against or hate their abusers, he further explained (p. 162): “The overpowering force and authority of the adult makes them dumb and can rob them of their senses. The same anxiety, however, if it reaches a certain maximum, compels them to subordinate themselves like automata to the will of the aggressor, to divine each one of his desires and to gratify these; completely oblivious of themselves they identify themselves with the aggressor … In any case the attack as a rigid external reality ceases to exist and in the traumatic trance the child succeeds in maintaining the previous situation of tenderness” (italics in original).
Catching a Wave: The Hypnosis-Sensitive Transference-Based Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Published in American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2018
Through a carefully timed exploration of the transferentially catalyzed traumatic memory, an integrative experience occurred in connection with which a previously dissociated masochistic sexual wish was recognized. Instead of pursuing a clinically disastrous course of blaming of the victim through a misunderstanding of the phenomenon of the repetition compulsion (Freud, 1914), it was possible to further the treatment with this “psychoactive” and hypnotically informed therapeutic approach. Then, on a deeper level, a dissociated identification with the aggressor came to light, after which a reduction in anxiety and symptoms occurred as my patient experienced still further integration of his psyche.
Traumatic Knowing/Unknowing and the Return of the Disavowed in The Tale
Published in Studies in Gender and Sexuality, 2021
Impelled by the introjected traumatic object that resides internally and effectuated through the operation of repetition compulsion, identification with the aggressor becomes displaced in time and space and repeated with other objects, reprising and bearing the imprint of the original trauma. In the film, the introjected aggressive paradigm is reconfigured and enacted in two classroom scenes of Jennifer teaching film students how to reach the hidden truth of others’ internal states and experiences, beyond their deceiving words and defenses—a possible response to her own traumatic experience of treacherous deception by others and self-deception. She singles out students and, in front of a large class, intrusively interviews them about personal and intimate experiences, seemingly without consent and without regard for boundaries, her position of power and authority demanding and achieving compliance.3In the first scene Jennifer interviews a student regarding unacknowledged depression, questions the student’s believability, and asks him if he believes himself regarding his report of his psychological state. The scene ends abruptly at the moment a student asks a question about “crossing the boundary.” In the second, she surprises a student with questions regarding her first sexual experience, jarringly persists in spite of the student’s nervous discomfort, and harshly admonishes her for her reluctance to disclose intimate sexual details. Boundary violation occurs between teacher/coach and student/child in a derivation of the original trauma. In these classroom situations, the trauma-saturated subject positions are defensively inverted: Passive is turned into active, and identification with the aggressor is enacted through a concordant identification with the aggressor’s aggression.