Unprepared for life

The effects of early traumatic experience

Katarzyna Prot-Klinger

kasiaprot@gmail.com
Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej w Warszawie (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5202-1511

Abstract

In the article, based on literature and therapeutic practice, I describe the impact of an early traumatic experience on later life. This experience is the lack of care at a very early stage of development,  in the case of the people I describe, hiding them as Jewish infants during the Holocaust. Contrary to popular psychology, trauma does not strengthen the psyche or help cope with life’s challenges. Early traumatic experience causes disturbances in the area of ​​attachment, which in turn affects the difficulty in coping with subsequent difficult life events.


Keywords:

Holocaust, psychotherapy, unpreparedness

Anna Bikont, Nigdy nie byłaś Żydówką, Wydawnictwo Czarne, Wołowiec 2023, s. 205
  Google Scholar

Wilfred Bion, Uczenie się na podstawie doświadczenia, tłum. Danuta Golec, Oficyna Ingenium, Warszawa 2011
  Google Scholar

Christopher Bollas, The shadow of the object. Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Konwn, Columbia University Press, New York. 1987.
  Google Scholar

John Bowlby, Attachment and loss (Attachment and loss. Vol. I. Attachment. New York: Basic Books. 1969; Attachment and loss. Vol. II. Separation: Anxiety and anger. New York: Basic Books. 1973; Attachment and loss. Vol. III. Loss. New York: Basic Books. 1980).
  Google Scholar

John Bowlby , Przywiązanie, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2007
  Google Scholar

Children in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath: Historical and Psychological Studies of the Kestenberg Archive, red. Sharon Kangisser Cohen, Eva Fogelman, Dalia Ofer, Berghahn Books, New York, Oxford 2019
  Google Scholar

Dante Cicchetti, Fred A Rogosch, Sheree L Toth, Fostering secure attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventive interventions, Dev Psychopathol. 2006, 18(3):623-49.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579406060329   Google Scholar

Sándor Ferenczi, Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child—The Language of Tenderness and of Passion, Contemporary Psychoanalysis 1988, 24:196-206
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.1988.10746234   Google Scholar

Sandor Ferenczi, The Clinical Diary, red. Judith Dupont, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, London 1995
  Google Scholar

Samuel Gerson, When the Third is Dead: Memory, Mourning, and Witnessing in the Aftermath of the Holocaust, Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90:1341–1357
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00214.x   Google Scholar

Jay R. Greenberg, Stephen A. Mitchell, Object relations in psychoanalytic theory, Harvard University Press, 1983, s.20
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjk2xv6   Google Scholar

Andre Green, The dead mother. [w:] On private madness, London: Rebus, 57–84.
  Google Scholar

Erik Hesse, Mary Main, Kelley Yost Abrams, Anne Rifkin, Unresolved states regarding loss or abuse can have “second-generation” effects: Disorganization, role inversion, and frightening ideation in the offspring of traumatized non-maltreating parents: [w:] M. F. Solomon and D. J. Siegel (red.), Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, Brain, ss.57-106. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 2003
  Google Scholar

Marinus H. Van IJzendoorn, Carlo Schuengel, Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg. Disorganized attachment in early childhood: Meta-analysis of precursors, concomitants and sequelae. Development and Psychopathology 1999, 11, 225-249.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579499002035   Google Scholar

Suzanne Kaplan, Children in the Holocaust. Dealing With Affects and Memory Images in Trauma and Generational Linking, Stockholm University, Stockholm 2002
  Google Scholar

Hans Keilson, Herman Sarphatie, Sequential traumatization in children, Jerusalem: The Magnes Press 1992.
  Google Scholar

Anna Kołacińska-Gałązka, Jacek Gałązka, Maciej Śmiarowski, Moi żydowscy rodzice, moi polscy rodzice. Album wystawy Stowarzyszenia „Dzieci Holocaustu” w Polsce, Stowarzyszenie „Dzieci Holocaustu” w Polsce, Warszawa 2015, s. 50
  Google Scholar

Tomasz Kwaśniewski, Żydówa, Newsweek czerwiec 2013, https://www.newsweek.pl/polska/historia-klary-gross-zydowki-wychowywana-przez-polke/fsxjl4r [pobrano 10.03.2024]
  Google Scholar

Dori Laub, Traumatic Shutdown of Narrative and Symbolization: A Death Instinct Derivative? Contemporary Psychoanalysis 2005, 41(2), 307–326
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2005.10745863   Google Scholar

Alessandra Lemma, Keeping envy in mind: The vicissitudes of envy in adolescent motherhood, [w:] Envy and Gratitude Revisited, , s. 92–108.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429474316-7   Google Scholar

Giovanni Liotti, Trauma, dissociation and disorganized attachment: Three strands of a single
  Google Scholar

braid. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 2004, 41, 472– 486.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.41.4.472   Google Scholar

Giovanni Liotti, Disorganized/ disoriented attachment in the etiology of the dissociative disorders, Dissociation 1992, 5: 196-204.
  Google Scholar

Aviva Mazor, Relational couple therapy with post-traumatic survivors: Links between post-traumatic self and contemporary intimate relationships. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal 2004, 26(1), 3–21.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:COFT.0000016908.09501.bf   Google Scholar

Allan Schore, The developmnet of uncosnsious mind, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, London 2019
  Google Scholar


Published
2024-12-23

Cited by

Prot-Klinger, K. (2024) “Unprepared for life: The effects of early traumatic experience”, Konteksty, 346(3), pp. 163–168. doi: 10.36744/k.2646.

Authors

Katarzyna Prot-Klinger 
kasiaprot@gmail.com
Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej w Warszawie Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5202-1511

Katarzyna Prot-Klinger – psychiatrka i psychoterapeutka, analityczka grupowa, profesorka na Wydziale Psychologii Akademii Pedagogiki Specjalnej w Warszawie. Od wielu lat zajmuje się tematem indywidualnej i grupowej reakcji na wydarzenie traumatyczne. Jest autorką wielu artykułów oraz monografii Życie po Zagładzie (2009).



Statistics

Abstract views: 142
PDF downloads: 89