Take our Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Test

Find a therapist to heal from trauma.

Dissociation serves a protective function.

Repeated conflicts we experience may be the result of unprocessed trauma.

Repairing trauma often means engaging with the split-off "child" within.

When we have repeated, emotionally charged conflict with a partner or a therapist, there is likely trauma underneath. In psychoanalyst Donald Kalsched’s recent research, he argues that what is often struggling to come forward in these instances is the “unremembered child,” a part of the psyche split off in early childhood and available to the adult only as a vague emotional field.

When we are in acute fight or flight with a partner over seemingly benign matters, this could likely be the unremembered child poking through. It can also show up in sudden withdrawal, disproportionate anger, or even moments of unexpected tenderness.

Recent trauma research has shown that overwhelming experiences don’t just get stored; they get split. Dissociation, once understood as a pathology, is better recognized as a necessary adaptation to a threatening environment. The mind siphons off the violence to survive in the present state.

The Costs of Dissociation

But this survival comes at a cost later on.........

© Psychology Today