Dealing with damage: the desire for psychic violence to soothe psychic pain

Abstract

Damage and destruction in people's lives can be dealt with either through recognizing and resolving psychic pain and loss or acting out destructive human relationships. This paper highlights the internal processes within a patient and a troubled society where psychic pain may not be recognized, experienced and worked through, so leading to the possibility that psychic violence may be used to soothe heartfelt emotional injuries. Psychic pain is often associated with emotional poverty and inadequacy. This paper describes the idea that pain is acted out through psychic violence and how the therapist has to face and contain many facets of this human frailty disguised as ‘sexed‐up’ violence. My observations of psychic violence in the everyday life of a society exposed to over 35 years of death and destruction are also described. Here, there is not the comfort of the consulting room to detoxify poisonous projections, which often present under the psychic guise of superiority and contempt. Intrapsychic formulations are outlined which underlie such violence and clinical interventions and suggestions to repair societal troubles are offered to help this disturbed state of mind move towards more whole‐object human relations.