ABSTRACT
Impasse represents a treacherous and often necessary part of a hero’s quest. It’s the supreme test of discouragement and often represents the bottom-line question for a traumatized child with broken attachments. Will today’s caring adults give up, reject, or abuse, as the adults of the past? When family members and practitioners feel stuck, weary, and on the edge of removing a child somewhere, to somebody else, it often helps to see periods of impasse as reenactments of the child’s old life and a test to see if the worst traumas of the past will be repeated. In these difficult days and weeks, parents and practitioners often seem to be reliving the story of the child’s trauma.
