ABSTRACT
Sands (2010), using the language of dissociative unconscious communication, described a similar process of nonverbal and nonconscious attunement to traumatic affect and dissociated states of chronically traumatized patients. Sands defined this implicit communication as “a powerful and visceral resonance between patient and analyst, as something dissociated in the patient grabs hold of and enters into deep communion with something dissociated in the analyst and opens up a channel of unconscious empathy” (p. 365). Sands also integrated work from the field of traumatic stress by arguing that the process of dissociative unconscious communication must occur by way of deep engagement with traumatic images and somatosensory fragments in the patient’s and analyst’s dreams. Sands viewed this process of dissociative communication as an inevitable and deeply reparative part of the treatment with survivors of chronic trauma.
