Stephen D. Purcell on Dissociation and the Limitations of Verbal Conversation in Therapy

John, a profoundly traumatized person, […] alluded to the non-representational aspect of dissociation this way:

“If the mind is overwhelmed, the brain has other tools for survival. There are no words for that.”

It is important “technically” to recognize that there simply cannot be a therapeutic verbal conversation about unrepresented affects. The main point here is that dissociated affective experience shows up not in what is talked about but, alternatively, manifests itself in the various actions that occur in the setting of psychoanalysis.

In addition to allowing a proper place for the lack of [personal] agency, an appreciation of the centrality of unrepresented affective experience in dissociative psychopathology and, consequently, of its necessary and inevitable enactment in analysis are other essential perspectives in the development of a comprehensive clinical theory. Something additional to verbal (symbolic) conversation must find its way into our clinical practice and theory.

Purcell, S. D. (2019). Psychic song and dance: Dissociation and duets in the analysis of trauma. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 88(2), 315–347.