ABSTRACT
Peter provided for the psychoanalytic literature an extraordinary illustration of the concept of transgenerational transmission of trauma and its consequences. The news that Gregory and his mother’s house was being sold, and that the couple were planning to spend the rest of their lives in a large apartment overlooking the sea in a resort area of South Carolina, started up Peter’s grief and mourning over his lost childhood in earnest. This process included a kind of “second look”. This concept—the second look—was first described by Samuel Novey in 1968. Samuel Novey’s concept had therapeutic value. Harold Blum questioned the concept of acting out in 1976. He stated that in its classical sense “acting out” is usually considered a “formidable resistance outside the psychoanalytic scrutiny; but it may also represent efforts to master trauma, and a transference development coincident with analytic work and a step toward sublimated activity”.
