Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74).

D.Phil. / Profound psychological trauma, which may lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can continue to negatively impact the lives of its victims for years after its occurrence. Psychological trauma is seen across cultures in people of all ages, the world over, and South Africa’s high levels of crime and violence, HIV and AIDS, and road accidents, make the topic especially pertinent. The symptom clusters of PTSD, included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition – text revised (DSM-IV-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2000), namely Re-experiencing, Avoidance and numbing, and Increased Arousal can lead to significant distress and may interfere with all facets of life, including social functioning, career goals, romantic relationships, leisure activities, and mental wellbeing. The effects of trauma in childhood may be different than when it occurs in adulthood, due to developmental processes occurring on physical, emotional, and cognitive levels (e.g. Drell, Siegel, & Gaensbauer, 1993; Perrin, Smith, & Yule, 2000). As such it is clearly important to understand the effects of trauma specific to children. A fair amount of literature is available which discusses the emotional and psychological consequences of trauma in children. Similar studies with regard to PTSD are also available. However, a holistic picture of either psychological trauma, or PTSD in childhood should also include neuropsychological aspects, functions such as attention and concentration, planning, organisation, psychomotor speed, and memory in which dysfunction may interfere with children’s development and futures. Although the field of neuropsychology has traditionally investigated how the brain responds to physical trauma or disease processes, recent decades of technological advancement have made it possible to understand that psychological trauma may actually result in neurobiological abnormalities.

D.Litt. et Phil. / The present study explores the experiences of abused women who kill their intimate male partners and are imprisoned as a result. It looks at the multiple traumas associated with the abuse, killing and imprisonment. Abuse of women violates their right of freedom and security, as well as the right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The experiences are explored within a prison context in which these women are serving hefty sentences as a means of punishment. This is a means of prosecuting perpetrators by the criminal justice system, thus sending out a message that violence is unacceptable. The prison context is metaphorically and physically associated with phenomenon such as isolation, control, labelling, punishment, reform and rehabilitation, among many others. Social Constructionism as a postmodern epistemology becomes relevant in this study in that the concern is in explicating the process by which people come to describe, explain, or otherwise account for the world (including themselves) in which they live. Therefore, the abused women’s experiences are descriptions to be understood through the analysis of the intersubjective influence of language, family, and culture. The implication being that social construction reflects on that which is said about the world, which is the product of shared conventions of discourse that are guided by and limited by the systems of language that we use. Our understandings of reality are embedded in our patterns of action, and these understandings constrain future constructions. Language as an important tool in social constructionism is embedded in the ideas, concepts and memories arising from social discourse and is found in neither the speaker nor the hearer, but somewhere in between. Furthermore, the context of prison afforded me with the opportunity to experience a sense of communality with the women, which according to a social constructionist stance suggests that reality is co-created between people in their quest for meaning from the interpreted experiences. There is no absolute truth that represents its objectivity, implying that as the researcher, I am not entering the system searching for some single truth that is ultimate. This acknowledges that there are realities and reflexivity of events and situations that look for many alternatives deconstructed and constructed equally between the researcher and participants. In conducting this study, a qualitative method of research was used, which focuses on the description, exploration and elaboration of experiences and perspectives of the people being interviewed. The qualitative method is not concerned with numbers and statistical analysis in the way that the quantitative method is. The participants take active charge in describing and exploring experiences that bring about meaning to them and the study. The researcher is equally involved as the participants, and becomes the participant observer. Whilst the focus was directed towards experiences of abuse and the multiple implications of trauma on abused women, the larger social context of their experiences was acknowledged. Five women offenders who are in the Potchefstroom prison, participated in this research. The women were allowed to elaborate on their experiences as experts in their own lives. Through this interaction a relational process of sharing and support emerges, which is characteristic of therapeutic practices with social constructionism. In-depth semi-structured interviews provided a means to explore their incidents of abuse as perpetrated by their intimate male partners. For the purpose of collecting data, an open-ended questionnaire was used. A thematic content method was used to analyse data. Here themes are identified that represent the meaning of events constructed by the participants themselves. A thematic analysis reflected the following themes: Loss and gain, power and helplessness, hope and despair as well as connection and disconnection. Upon the identification and analysis of themes, the discussion of findings which are integrated using the social constructionist theory, was conducted. From the findings the implications of multiple traumas abused women suffer at the hands of their intimate male partners, and the result of killing and imprisonment, are explored.

A presente dissertação configura-se como uma interrogação à teoria psicanalítica acerca das ressonâncias do traumatismo na função psíquica da memória. Ambos são conceitos que remetem aos fundamentos da psicanálise, apontando para a constituição do psiquismo, bem como para seus limites. A dissertação procura ampliar o estudo da temática para além da obra de Freud e alcançar as contribuições de Sandor Ferenczi e seus desdobramentos na obra de Nicolas Abraham e Maria Torok. Em Freud, as relações de trauma e memória, principalmente a partir da conceituação de um além do princípio do prazer, apontam para o funcionamento, ou melhor, às falhas de funcionamento nos limites do psíquico - entre corpo e psique, entre percepção e representação - responsáveis pela instauração da memória e a diferenciação psíquica. O traumático foi associado à dinâmica da pulsão de morte e a da angústia automática, que faz continuamente uma demanda de trabalho psíquico, de ligação, anterior à instauração do princípio de prazer. Quando não há possibilidade de ligação e transcrição do acontecimento, seus efeitos apresentam-se de forma negativa como danos narcísicos. Ferenczi considera o papel do objeto como determinante em relação ao destino traumático de um acontecimento. Caso o objeto não possa adaptar-se às necessidades do sujeito e fornecer ou legitimar um sentido ao vivido, interrompe-se o processo de introjeção e inscrição psíquica. Frente ao desamparo psíquico decorrente da ausência de investimento do objeto, o psiquismo se defende por meio da clivagem das impressões traumáticas ou imerge em comoção, da qual não resta memória. Nicolas Abraham e Maria Torok acrescentam que um acontecimento que permaneceu clivado no psiquismo de uma geração - impossibilitado de circulação e figurabilidade - é transmitido enquanto lacuna de memória para a próxima geração. A imagem do trauma como avesso da memória é paradoxal, pois remete tanto às impressões que aguardam uma revelação por meio de uma ligação com uma imagem, no modelo dos sonhos traumáticos, como à pura negatividade relativa à falta de representação, da qual um sentido pode advir mediante somente uma construção que produza um sentimento de convicção. Tal imagem paradoxal pretende oferecer uma reserva psíquica/teórica ao analista enquanto uma figurabilidade possível das ressonâncias do traumático na memória. / The present essay comprises of an interrogation to psychoanalysis theory about the consequences of trauma in the memory psychic role. Both of them are concepts that refer to the psychoanalysis fundamentals, leading to the psychism constitution, as well as to its boundaries. The dissertation attempts to expand the set of themes beyond Freuds work and reaches out Sandor Ferenczis contributions and its unfoldings into Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroks works. In Freuds, the connections within trauma and memory, especially from the conceptualization of a further than the pleasure principle, point out to the functioning, or even better, the non-functioning gaps at the psychism boundaries - between body and psyche, within perception and representation responsible for memory establishment and psychic differentiation. The traumatic was associated to death instinct and the automatic anguish, which continuously calls forth a psychic work demand, of connection, prior to the pleasure principle instauration. When there is no possibility of connection and transcription of the incident, its effects present themselves in a negative way such as narcissistic damage. Ferenczi considers the object role as determinant on the traumatic event destination. In case the object can not adapt to the subjects needs and provide or legitimate a meaning to what was lived, there is an interruption on the process of introjection and psychic inscription. Face the psychic abandonment due to the absence of the object investment, the psychism defends itself through the cleavage of the traumatic impressions or it immerges in comotion, of which remains no memory. Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok add that an event that has remained cleaved in the psychism of a generation incapable of circulation and figurability is forwarded to the next generation as a memory lacuna. The image of trauma as the inverted side of the memory is paradoxical, once it refers to the impressions that await a revelation through a link with an image, in the traumatic dreams model, as much as to the pure negativity related to the lack of representation, from which a meaning can only occur by means of a construction that produces a conviction feeling. Such self-contradictory image intends to offer a theoretic/psychic restraint to the analist as a possible figurability of the resonances of the traumatic in the memory.

From 1914 to 1940 Russia lived through a series of traumatic events: World War I, the Bolshevik revolution, the Civil War, famine, and the Bolshevik and subsequently Stalinist terror. These events precipitated and facilitated a complete breakdown of the status quo associated with the tsarist regime and led to the emergence and eventual pervasive presence of a culture of violence propagated by the Bolshevik regime. This dissertation explores how the ongoing exposure to trauma impaired ordinary perception and everyday language use, which, in turn, informed literary language use in the writings of Viktor Shklovsky, the prominent Formalist theoretician, and of the avant-garde writer, Daniil Kharms. While trauma studies usually focus on the reconstructive and redeeming features of trauma narratives, I invite readers to explore the structural features of literary language and how these features parallel mechanisms of cognitive processing, established by medical research, that take place in the mind affected by traumatic encounters. Central to my analysis are Shklovsky's memoir A Sentimental Journey and his early articles on the theory of prose "Art as Device" and "The Relationship between Devices of Plot Construction and General Devices of Style" and Daniil Karms's theoretical writings on the concepts of "nothingness," "circle," and "zero," and his prose work written in the 1930s. My analysis probes into various modes in which trauma can present itself in a text, in forms other than semantic content, and points to what distinguishes a modernist text from one written under the impairing conditions of trauma, despite their structural similarities.

A presente dissertação configura-se como uma interrogação à teoria psicanalítica acerca das ressonâncias do traumatismo na função psíquica da memória. Ambos são conceitos que remetem aos fundamentos da psicanálise, apontando para a constituição do psiquismo, bem como para seus limites. A dissertação procura ampliar o estudo da temática para além da obra de Freud e alcançar as contribuições de Sandor Ferenczi e seus desdobramentos na obra de Nicolas Abraham e Maria Torok. Em Freud, as relações de trauma e memória, principalmente a partir da conceituação de um além do princípio do prazer, apontam para o funcionamento, ou melhor, às falhas de funcionamento nos limites do psíquico - entre corpo e psique, entre percepção e representação - responsáveis pela instauração da memória e a diferenciação psíquica. O traumático foi associado à dinâmica da pulsão de morte e a da angústia automática, que faz continuamente uma demanda de trabalho psíquico, de ligação, anterior à instauração do princípio de prazer. Quando não há possibilidade de ligação e transcrição do acontecimento, seus efeitos apresentam-se de forma negativa como danos narcísicos. Ferenczi considera o papel do objeto como determinante em relação ao destino traumático de um acontecimento. Caso o objeto não possa adaptar-se às necessidades do sujeito e fornecer ou legitimar um sentido ao vivido, interrompe-se o processo de introjeção e inscrição psíquica. Frente ao desamparo psíquico decorrente da ausência de investimento do objeto, o psiquismo se defende por meio da clivagem das impressões traumáticas ou imerge em comoção, da qual não resta memória. Nicolas Abraham e Maria Torok acrescentam que um acontecimento que permaneceu clivado no psiquismo de uma geração - impossibilitado de circulação e figurabilidade - é transmitido enquanto lacuna de memória para a próxima geração. A imagem do trauma como avesso da memória é paradoxal, pois remete tanto às impressões que aguardam uma revelação por meio de uma ligação com uma imagem, no modelo dos sonhos traumáticos, como à pura negatividade relativa à falta de representação, da qual um sentido pode advir mediante somente uma construção que produza um sentimento de convicção. Tal imagem paradoxal pretende oferecer uma reserva psíquica/teórica ao analista enquanto uma figurabilidade possível das ressonâncias do traumático na memória. / The present essay comprises of an interrogation to psychoanalysis theory about the consequences of trauma in the memory psychic role. Both of them are concepts that refer to the psychoanalysis fundamentals, leading to the psychism constitution, as well as to its boundaries. The dissertation attempts to expand the set of themes beyond Freuds work and reaches out Sandor Ferenczis contributions and its unfoldings into Nicolas Abraham and Maria Toroks works. In Freuds, the connections within trauma and memory, especially from the conceptualization of a further than the pleasure principle, point out to the functioning, or even better, the non-functioning gaps at the psychism boundaries - between body and psyche, within perception and representation responsible for memory establishment and psychic differentiation. The traumatic was associated to death instinct and the automatic anguish, which continuously calls forth a psychic work demand, of connection, prior to the pleasure principle instauration. When there is no possibility of connection and transcription of the incident, its effects present themselves in a negative way such as narcissistic damage. Ferenczi considers the object role as determinant on the traumatic event destination. In case the object can not adapt to the subjects needs and provide or legitimate a meaning to what was lived, there is an interruption on the process of introjection and psychic inscription. Face the psychic abandonment due to the absence of the object investment, the psychism defends itself through the cleavage of the traumatic impressions or it immerges in comotion, of which remains no memory. Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok add that an event that has remained cleaved in the psychism of a generation incapable of circulation and figurability is forwarded to the next generation as a memory lacuna. The image of trauma as the inverted side of the memory is paradoxical, once it refers to the impressions that await a revelation through a link with an image, in the traumatic dreams model, as much as to the pure negativity related to the lack of representation, from which a meaning can only occur by means of a construction that produces a conviction feeling. Such self-contradictory image intends to offer a theoretic/psychic restraint to the analist as a possible figurability of the resonances of the traumatic in the memory.

The works of creative writing which culminate in this thesis explore themes of everyday trauma, the gendered body as rendered in writing, and writing as propelled by the aural senses above factors such as logic and plot. Dysphoria of identity through gendered, geographical, and institutional means pervades each work in instances that range from the subtle to the all-consuming. Rhythm and intuition bond at the sentence level in each work, rendering a wildness to the pages. Moved by sensation rather than a drive to make something abundantly clear, the revelations of reading arrive at a level of the associative, the dreamy, and the sound of certain syllables and words as juxtaposed with deliberation posing as spontaneity. Grappling with a simultaneous urge to assimilate and to reject societal and geographical cultural norms, there is a fraught tension and a charged friction to the entire thesis herein.

Current theories of PTSD propose that impaired retrieval of trauma memories may impede processing of these memories and subsequent trauma recovery. This thesis investigated memory retrieval processes in trauma survivors with and without symptoms of posttraumatic stress, and in non-traumatised individuals exposed to a highly arousing event. Study 1 examined deliberate avoidance of unwanted memories in recent trauma survivors. The results indicated that attempts to forget were associated with poorer recall of forgotten information, but the size of this effect did not depend on the presence or absence of Acute Stress Disorder (ASD). Study 2 investigated automatic retrieval inhibition in trauma survivors with or without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The results suggested that repeated retrieval of trauma-related information by individuals with PTSD can cause inhibition of related, but unpractised information. Studies 3 and 4 examined the relationship between the vantage point of trauma memories, avoidance and posttraumatic stress symptomatology. The findings indicated that recalling a traumatic event from an observer perspective is associated with post trauma avoidance. They also showed that an observer vantage point in the initial few weeks after trauma is associated with poorer long-term post trauma adjustment. Studies 5, 6 and 7 were analogue studies which analysed the impact of heightened arousal on memory retrieval in novice skydivers. The results suggested that elevated arousal can interfere with retrieval of information related to the arousal-inducing event. Study 7 also indicated that autobiographical memory for the event may be impaired. Finally, Study 8 examined the qualities of trauma memories that were accessed via different modes of retrieval. The results provided evidence that intrusive memories were experienced as more realistic and with more intense affect than memories for the same event that were deliberately retrieved. Together, the findings of this program of research extend current theories of PTSD by highlighting the mechanisms through which retrieval of trauma memories may be impaired. The results suggest that the quality of trauma memories is affected by avoidance processes, elevated arousal and level of conscious control the individual exerts over retrieval.

This thesis explores the ways in which a number of individuals survived their experiences of severe and perpetrated trauma. I theorise the participant’s survival adaptations in terms of hope which I positioned as being an active relational process. A case study method was used to collect data from intersubjective-psychoanalytically informed therapy sessions, from three participants who each received 12, 60 minute therapy sessions. I utilised a hermeneutic ontology from the work of Gadamer, who contended that the development of understanding and meanings results from an active intersubjective process. This ontology and design enabled the research to capture and interpret aspects of the dynamic development of personal meanings about the experiences of surviving traumas. Central to my notions of hope is the concept of intersubjectivity which is based upon the work of Winnicott, Fairbairn, Ferenczi, Meares, Stern and Bromberg. Using their ideas about relatedness and identification I argue that survivors expressed hopeful intentions and actions through their conscious and unconscious adaptive strategies. I explore the peritraumatic hopeful adaptations the survivors made such as identifying with the aggressor, the splitting of self, and the overt valuing of relatedness. I further argue that hopeful intentions can be seen in such actions as the survivor remembering their trauma rather than re-enacting it, in their efforts in narrating their trauma histories despite their fears, shame and difficulties in finding a listener. The thesis concludes by exploring some of the ramifications for society of hope, trauma and witnessing: foremost being the need to recognise the vulnerable in our communities and the difficulties we face in meeting the challenges of knowing their stories. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Environmental factors such as stress and hormones acting during embryogenesis, as well as early life experiences such as parental care have been clearly demonstrated in animal models to shape the individual's phenotypic gene expression, brain development, and behavioural repertoires ( Meaney, 2005 ). However, human studies have not assessed both prenatal mental health and the quality of postnatal parental care with the same sample of mothers. The current study sought to fill this gap by investigating the impact of women's experiences of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) before pregnancy on the mother's ante - and postnatal mental health problems, parenting, and children developmental outcomes. The study reported here is the second phase of a longitudinal study that commenced in 2002. In phase one community based middle class women in their third trimester of pregnancy were recruited and followed during the early postnatal period ( Linke, 2002 ; Lowe 2003 ). The current study assessed forty four mother - infant dyads at three time points during the second postnatal year. The dyads were divided into one of three groups ( control, trauma control and PTSD ) depending on the mother's trauma experience and whether she met the lifetime diagnosis for PTSD. The assessments included the measure of the mother and infant's basal cortisol, the mother's lifetime and ongoing mental health problems, the quality of the mother - infant relationship, and the development of the infant's general cognitive abilities, emerging language skills and emotional and behavioural self regulation. The current study found infant morning cortisol levels measured at 13 months of age were significantly predicted by maternal trauma experience and the subsequent PTSD symptoms of hyperarousal supporting the research of Yehuda and colleagues ( 2005 ) and implicating an epigenetic transmission of environmental experience from the mother to her offspring possibly via in utero programming of the HPA axis. Overall, maternal trauma was found to impact on both child language and self regulation development. Unexpectedly, the trauma control or resilient mothers were found to be least engaged with their infants, and their infants had the lowest language development. However, poorer language development was not mediated through dyadic emotional availability or maternal sensitivity. Maternal PTSD was found to be related to poorer child emotional and behavioural outcomes which were mediated through maternal mental health problems. Overall, the findings of the current study suggest that maternal trauma experience is associated with a biologically based mechanism occurring in both the mother and the infant which is protective for both the mother and the child's emotional health, but comes at a cost of slower infant language development. Furthermore, this mechanism appears to have broken down in the presence of maternal PTSD for both the mother and the infant with subsequent associations with greater maternal mental health problems, more problematic infant emotional and behavioural problems, and disorganised attachment. These findings have clinical implications, particularly for early intervention programs. The results need to be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size. However, the findings have broad implications in relation to resilience to trauma and the development of psychopathology and warrant repetition. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--School of Medicine, 2007.