Written by Donald Kalsched
Format: MP3

AUDIOLECTURE: Experiences in early childhood that cause unbearable psychic pain or anxiety (trauma) can leave the personality and the human spirit threatened with destruction.

To avoid this, a defensive splitting of the self occurs in which a "progressed" part of the self casts a spell over a "regressed" part and locks it up in an inner sanctum for safekeeping.

This self-encapsulation is out pictured in dreams during the psychological process.

In this lecture, using dream examples from the clinical situation and the fairy tale of Rapunzel, we will see how the wisdom of the psyche's archetypal defenses saves the imperishable personal spirit from further trauma, but at the price of cutting it off from life.

Psychotherapy of this "trauma complex" and its primitive resistances will be discussed.


Donald E. Kalsched, Ph.D . is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst with a private practice in Katonah, N.Y. He is a faculty member and supervisor at the C.G. Jung Institute in New York City and with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. Currently he is Dean of Jungian Studies specialty at the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Bedford Hills, N.Y.

He is the author of The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit