This paper describes the relationship between an analyst and her patient who are both children of survivors of the Armenian Genocide in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey, 1915–1923, and the impact of their shared cultural/traumatic history. It explores how their life stories came together via memories, fantasies, metaphors, and fragments of trauma. An empathic introspective stance facilitated understanding and working through of the affective, cognitive aspects of interweaving subjectivities and mutual transferences. A process of transformation from repetition to memory to the creation of coherent narratives is described.
Two Continuing Education Credits for NYS social workers, psychoanalysts, and psychologists.
Shake' Topalian
Shake’ Topalian, MA,RN, PMHCNS-BC, is on the faculty and is an executive committee member of TRISP. She is faculty and analytic supervisor at the IPSS, ICP, and PPSC. In additiion to the paper presented tonight which was published in the IJPSP 2013, From Genocide Horror to Finding Our Own Voices was published in Voices of Armenian Women, 2000. She is in private practice.
Harry Paul
Harry Paul, PhD, Discussant, is a founding member, past president, faculty and supervising and training analyst at the Training and Research Institute in Self Psychology in New York City. He is a board and faculty member at the Training and Research Intersubjective Self Psychology Foundation and a member of the International Council of IAPSP. He is the co-author of The Self Psychology of Addiction and Its Treatment: Narcissus in Wonderland and most recently co-edited and contributed to Intersubjective Self Psychology: A Primer, Hagman, Paul, and Zimmermann, Routledge, 2019. He has authored numerous articles on self psychology, intersubjective self psychology, and addiction. He is in private practice in New York City and in Chappaqua, New York.
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