ABSTRACT
Serious psychotherapy is hand-to-hand combat, and there is always blood that is shed. There is an opinion among many clinicians today that short-cuts in the psychotherapy of trauma are available, special procedures one can apply that circumvent the arduous struggles with overpowering flashbacks, terrifying nightmares, extended suicidal depressions, dangerous re-enactments of the traumatic histories. In the battle that unfolds, it is not the patient that is the adversary. The war that commences is between this world and another one, a virtual universe at first—manifest only in faint intimations, being a realm of potentialities, requiring extraordinary and even heroic efforts in order to come into being and be established. The therapist is a representative of this second world, sent from the future to do battle with the reigning powers holding the patient captive. Essential in the drama that unfolds is the validating presence of the therapist as a human being.
