Western New England Psychoanalytic Society

This event addresses: trauma

Speaker: Joseph Fernando, Mpsy, MD

This paper delves further into the nature and clinical applications of the zero process, an idea I introduced in my 2009 book on defenses to designate a specific form of mental functioning that is a product of trauma. The formation of zero process memories through the shutting down during trauma of various functions such as integration and abstraction that usually construct the present moment leads to unintegrated, unsymbolized bits and pieces of raw experience. While being retained over time like a memory, in most other ways they behave as a present or future experience. The experience refuses to retreat from the perceptual systems of the mind to the memory systems, and thus does not become part of the psychological past. Specific ideas about the nature of the zero process will be contrasted with other theories of post-traumatic functioning, as well as with Freud’s idea of the primary process. Specific defenses that use the “just happening or about to happen” nature of the zero process, such as temporal shifting and splitting of the identity, will be described, as will zero process structures such as introjects. One of the main findings of zero process theory is that the repetitions of trauma, rather than being merely passive, are phenomena that have specific dynamics and structures. While pointing out the similarity between a present action or feeling and a past trauma has little effect, analyzing the defenses and structures that hold the repetition in place allows us to crack it open and achieve structural change. Because the superego is a structure with zero process elements, these same techniques are helpful in superego analysis.