ABSTRACT
Donald Meltzer's concept of the dimensionality of psychic space provided a helpful framework to think about the dynamic of battered and battering women and men, most of whom presented the one- and two-dimensional spaces that impaired the emergence of the internal world, the psychic space for meaning and symbolization. For the most part, they functioned in one dimension, in constant action –reaction and circumstantial attraction–repulsion. In Magdalena's case, it seemed that nothing remained of the two-way movement between container and contained that enables the development of thought, meaning, and mind itself. Her disorganized sensory system seemed to have been damaged by violent intrusions, which may have ruptured her perceptive sensory matrix, making it difficult for her to discriminate, differentiate, relate, or transform her experiences. The concepts of sensorial and structural dismantling described by Meltzer seemed to be present in many of these battered women.
