ABSTRACT
Traumatized patients often experience themselves as being alienated from human society. While they strongly desire connectedness with others who have suffered similar anguish, they are simultaneously afraid of accepting the possibility that anyone could understand their suffering, and avoid environments in which they might share their experience. Traumatized patients like Hideki often avoid recognizing the apparent similarities between their experiences and those of others, insisting that their experiences are different and unique. For traumatized patients like Hideki, the effort to find “a brother or sister who knows the same darkness” is preordained to fail. Such patients need a relational home in which they can experience themselves as being human. An intersubjective taboo, which works against being in touch with the essential aspect of traumatization, remains unspoken to protect the vulnerability of participants and the group.
