ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Gregory Bateson entitled "Style, grace and information in primitive art", in which it is asserted that, "Art becomes, in this sense, an exercise in communicating about the species of unconsciousness". A particularly challenging feature of the work with many traumatized young people is the frequent silences and inhibited communication. The chapter describes some of the unconscious features of opaque silence, with particular reference to the theory developed by Earl Hopper of a fourth basic assumption. In early life, human infants are profoundly dependent on others for survival, a fact that has resulted in natural selection promoting the evolution of powerful psychological and behavioural systems to ensure that the infant's dependency needs are adequately met. The group's opaque silence referred to here has a very particular feel, and is often extremely painful to experience. It may be so intense as to be difficult to find words for it; nothing quite conveys its primordial, inchoate nature.
