2012/01/01 by Donnel B. Stern · 1 citation
Psychology · #Counseling, Therapy, and Family Dynamics #Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications #Social Representations and Identity
paper · doi:10.1002/j.2167-4086.2012.tb00485.x
crossref issued 2012/01/01 · crossref published 2012/01/01 · crossref published-print 2012/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2012/01/01 · crossref created 2012/12/21 · crossref published-online 2017/09/18 · crossref deposited 2019/07/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We are used to the idea that trauma in the past interrupts our capacity to grasp the present. But present or recent trauma can have a similar dissociative effect on our capacity to experience the more distant past. Contemporary trauma can rob the past of its goodness, leaving one feeling as if the past is gone, dead, separated from the present. The vitalization of the present by the past or the past by the present requires that experiences be linked across time. These links are created, in both directions, via categories of experience characterized by shared affect (Modell 1990, 2006). Such categories are created, in turn, by metaphor; and the construction of these metaphors across time requires that one be able to occupy self-states in both the past and the present that can then bear witness to one another. Trauma can result in the dissociation of these self-states from one another, leading to a disconnection of present and past.