This chapter describes Paul Valent’s interview with Judith Kestenberg, a discoverer of child survivors of the Holocaust. The chapter describes retrieval of memories and through deep physiological interactions of interviewer and interviewee, explanations of sensations that related to the interviewee’s early traumas.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1994 Categories: Child survivors of the Holocaust, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

Bearing witness is to tell a sacred truth, which even if unpalatable, has to be told for the sake of humanity. The Holocaust has added a new dimension to this mission. However,all traumatised people can bear witness to life and death and existential  issues. The entry examines the conditions and the means that are or are not propitious to bearing witness.

Download: View document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 2011 Categories: Holocaust, Nature, treatment, memory, bearing witness, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

Forgotten traumas or those that occur in early life are enacted in emotions and actions in the therapeutic relationship. A clinical interchange illustrates how transference and countertransference  are utilised to reach the original trauma, make it verbal, and facilitate a non-toxic narrative.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1996 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

Unlike other affects such as anxiety, anger and guilt, shame has been a relatively neglected affect. Yet it has recently been shown to be important in formations of self and personality, and to have important derivatives. In this paper I follow a patient’s struggle from shame to dignity.
Document: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1990 Categories: Sexual abuse, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

I will try to tell you a story of psychoanalysis and trauma. It will include a number of subplots, including Freud and his encounter with trauma, my encounter with psychoanalysis and my traumas, and my emergent view of a life-trauma paradigm. Such a paradigm assumes that our basic dialectic is life vs. trauma (not life vs. death, as had been thought). In the process, I will indicate some clinical applications of this approach, which applies traumatology in psychotherapy.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1st June 2002 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

Openness to unconscious psychodynamics and a psychotherapeutic stance may be useful outside  clinical situations. Examples are given in general medicine and in society. Wars are often spurred by unconscious forces. It may be helpful to expose and mitigate them.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1983 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

A clinical case illustrates that psychotherapy with the dying and their families can be therapeutic for all involved. It may allow love and loss to be acknowledged in an existentially meaningful way. Therapy may forestall unresolved grief reactions later. Therapists must be aware of the toll such therapies exact on them.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 1984 Categories: Dying, bereavement, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

The histories of views on trauma in psychoanalysis and traumatology indicate the difficulties in accepting the frequency and enormity of traumas. Psychoanalysis and traumatology must be therapeutic partners. Otherwise psychoanalysis will only deal with peripheral ripples of traumas, and traumatology will only deal with a truncated area of trauma.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: March 2002 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

This book follows logically from Survival to Fulfillment, in its practical applicability to diagnose and repair tears in the human fabric. Dr. Valent reviews the variety of treatments applied over the last century, from Freud and Janet to the current use of drugs, debriefing, EMDR, psychodynamic therapy, and cognitive behaviour therapy. Using his wholist perspective, Dr Valent puts them in perspective,  finds their common ingredients, and develops basic principles of trauma therapy.

Through 40 clinical cases, Dr Valent describes the techniques and efficacy of trauma therapy in various phases of trauma- from the time of its occurrence to its pervasiveness of the person years later.
Book: View Book

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: 3rd December 1998 Categories: Adaptation, Accept & Grieve, Assertiveness, Combat & Work, Attachment, Protected & Provided, Co-operation, Trust & Mutual Gain, Competition, Dominance, & Acquisition, Disasters, compassion fatigue, Fight, Defend & Rid, Flight, Run, Hide & Save Oneself, Rescue, Protect & Provide, Sexual abuse, Survival strategies presentations, Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Wholist perspective presentations

Psychoanalysis and traumatology were twin derivatives of the Enlightenment in that they both facilitated self-knowledge beyond religious givens. However, knowledge of the extent that trauma influenced an amoral personal and external world has been too much to bear for most people, including Freud. However, awareness of our unawareness through a partnership of psychoanalyis, traumatology and neuropsychology can potentially decrease the influence of trauma in the world.

Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: August Psychoanalysis and traumatology 2003 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy

Psychoanalytic conceptualisations of war are summarised. However, the psychoanalytic stance must be broadened and applied to observations of real conflicts. My own observations led me to believe that people respond from survival needs even if objectively they appear to be irrational. Knowledge of perceived survival needs and survival strategies that deal with them may be steps in elucidating the apparent madness of wars.
Download: View Document

Publication Author: Paul Valent Publication Date: March 1989 Categories: Trauma, Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, War