A MOTHER'S TRAUMATIC GRIEF AND HER BABY'S SOMATIC EXPRESSION

This article discusses the close relationship between a baby's very early somatic expressions and much older, non-elaborated, intrapsychic parental conflits. At birth, the re-experiencing of earlier ego states and the parent's confrontation with a new psychic configuration can bring about grief and the revival of unpolished emotions. These then, represent a real traumatic charge. Their impact on the quality of early interactions between the mother and her child appears quickly, especially when the environment fails in its function to shore up and to contain ``enkysted'' raw maternal feelings. The presentation of a prototypical case of this kind shows how the overflow of the mother's psychic apparatus is expressed when the functions of containment and the processing of excitations fail with respect to the baby and his immature psychic apparatus. In this case, the baby's expression is a somatic one.