PSYCHOLOGICAL DISMEMBERMENT: When connection shatters

Images of physical dismemberment are often used in fairy tales, dreams, and art to depict psychological fragmentation, numbing, and other forms of disconnection. Such cut-offs, dissociations, and splits may be related to earlier relational trauma and constitute defenses against experiences perceived as too overwhelming for consciousness to absorb or even acknowledge. Experience can be dissociated or dismembered, behaviorally, emotionally, bodily, and by denying memory or knowledge of events. The Inner World of Trauma by Donald Kalsched (cited below) posits an inner dynamic that is both protective and persecutory. Such understandings can point the way to a healing process of re-membering those parts that have been cut off, thereby giving disowned feelings and experiences a fully felt place in consciousness.

HERE'S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE:

"In this dream, I remember being in a building that reminded me of a hospital or perhaps an asylum. It was very clinical looking (i.e., lots of steel and glass, white and silver walls/trim, people in smocks or scrubs). I was walking up a small stairway and looked through a doorway to see blood and body parts on the ground in front of me. Somehow, I know that it was two separate bodies, but I do not know who they belonged to. When I saw the body parts, I was anxious and had to stop myself from passing-out in the dream because I had a feeling that whoever did that to the bodies could be nearby. As I gathered myself, I began to walk away from the bodies very calmly to avoid drawing attention to myself. As I walked away, I saw a man, probably in his fifties or sixties, also a stranger, carrying a silver platter with more body parts. As I passed him, he said hello and smiled as if nothing were out of the ordinary. I then ran out of the building and vaguely remember running through a maze that had been set up on a basketball court until I was outside the building in a small grass field. The building was made of brick and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It had that look that many academic buildings have on college campuses."

REFERENCES:
Donald Kalsched. The Inner World of Trauma. https://a.co/d/94KJfbH
Neil Gaiman. The Graveyard Book. https://a.co/d/1saIoMp
Margaret Little. Psychotic Anxieties and Containment. https://a.co/d/80lbCIv
Joseph L Henderson., and Dyane N. Sherwood. Transformation of the Psyche: The Symbolic Alchemy of the Splendor Solis. https://a.co/d/4vHzRB8
The Golden Head image. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendo...

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