ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a specific type of difficulty in psychotherapeutic work with children and adolescents massively traumatized by repeated assaults experienced through war, organized violence, and torture. In a number of cases, psychotherapy will have to begin with the consideration that although the young person in question is driven into therapy by severe post-traumatic symptoms and is therefore motivated, all possibilities for a subjective dialogue seem to be blocked. The chapter is divided into three main sections. The first section is a theoretical examination of adolescence as seen against the background of a young refugee's integration of massively traumatizing experiences from earlier periods of his life. The next section is a theoretical discussion about the rudimentary symbols and psychodynamic functions of the post-traumatic nightmare. In the final section, to illustrate author's thoughts, he presents clinical material from the treatment of a young man of 15 years.
