ABSTRACT
As has been emphasized, over and over again, Severn helped introduce an alternative clinical method for psychoanalysis, trauma analysis. This method combined the alternative theoretical framework, The Confusion of Tongues paradigm with the clinical innovations of relaxation therapy. One of the controversial dimensions to this new method was the belief in the retrieved memories of childhood trauma as being authentic, not fantasy productions of a conflicted mind. In Severn's analysis with Ferenczi, she recalled horrific childhood abuse by her psychopathic father, which Ferenczi labeled as traumatic shocks. These abusive experiences were a very significant part of the analysis. As Severn reported, before her analysis with Ferenczi, she felt she was living under a black cloud during her adult life, haunted by emotional disturbance. In her previous three analyses, there was no relief from her emotional disturbances, or any indication that childhood abuse was a factor in her personality development.
