ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of two impingements namely external trauma and life under terror attack, upon the analytic space. It demonstrates that Sigmund Freud’s dilemma holds true for these impingements, that it is very difficult to establish clear lines of demarcation, and that just as with transference-love, though for different dynamics and reasons, the impact of terror and trauma severely taxes the analyst’s capacity to maintain the analytic position, space, and setting. The chapter considers the nature of the psychoanalytic space, it is important to delineate the different levels of impact and suffering incurred by a traumatic terror attack. In order to create, maintain, and be fully present in the psychoanalytic space, the analyst develops the capacity to temporarily suspend his ordinary human need for contact with external reality. This suspension is in the service of greater openness to the uncanny, the horrible, and the unbearable in internal reality.
