A sensibilidade do analista na clínica do traumático

Abstract

This study addresses the role of the analyst's sensitivity in the clinic of trauma. Connected to the field of affections, it is a complex issue that moves poets, philosophies, and psychology in the challenging task of giving it contours. In psychoanalysis, the affective world of hysterics allowed the emergence of an unconscious knowledge to which Freud was sensitive in his listening. Important at its inception, the relationship between affection and trauma marked the beginning of analytic practice. While Freud initially focused on this relationship and later moved towards other understandings throughout the stages of his theory, we demonstrate that Ferenczi, a first-generation analyst, revisited the issue of affection within the gaps of Freudian thought and reintroduced the problem of trauma into psychoanalysis, inaugurating a new clinical sensitivity. By insisting on continuing what Freud had seemingly deviated from, Ferenczi provoked a rupture in the Freudian movement and relaunched this issue in his own way, grounded in clinical experience with traumatized patients. We adopt his perspective in this theoretical-conceptual work, which aims to foster a dialogue between contributions on the subject while investigating the concepts of trauma and affection in Freud and Ferenczi, in order to tension and rethink their constructions in developing the notion of the analyst's sensitivity. We begin by addressing the question of trauma, reviewing its traces in Freudian thought and moving toward the tempo of Ferenczi’s traumatogenesis, highlighting the outline of a clinic distinct from that of neuroses: the clinic of trauma. As a result of this initial exploration, Freud’s foundational principles supporting the clinic of neuroses were revisited, focusing on the notion of transference as the central element of affection, alongside the analyst's abstinence and neutrality. Building on these foundations, we proceeded with an investigation into Ferenczi's field, identifying the notion of empathy as the gateway to recognizing affections within the analytic field and as a fundamental element in developing a clinical sensitivity for the psychoanalyst. As a result of this investigation, and considering concerns about the possibility of the analytic space reproducing the environment that previously traumatized, we relate the retraumatizing potential of analysis to Ferenczi's notion of infantile tenderness. When overlooked in the trauma situation, this tenderness reveals the insensitivity of the adult world to the conditions and needs of the child. Therefore, we find in the analyst's sensitivity the condition to remain open, receptive, and available to be affected by the clinical encounter, thus supporting the act of waiting for the patient’s process to unfold. We consider this sensitivity to be a fundamental measure in the clinic of trauma. However, it has also become necessary to think of it as a challenge within the context of the analyst's training – a crossroads through which the aesthetic dimension of psychoanalysis can be paved.