ABSTRACT
The concept of Predator Other (PO) draws on Putnam’s description of dissociation as “the escape when there is no escape.” The self’s capacities, perceptions, and emotions that are incompatible with that predatory Other become dissociated from the system of cognitive and emotional processing. The dynamics of impingements on the Infant and their PO effects on both the Self of the Infant and the Self of the other are presented.
Much of what has been learned about person-to-person violence and traumatic experience in the context of traditionally recognized traumatic incidents (including Grand’s “traumatically induced disorders of knowing”) is also applicable in traumatic experiences of normal development. Concepts of evil, Howell’s “psychopathic sadism,” and Tuch’s “perverse modes of relatedness” reflect the egocentric nature of PO incursions into the Infant’s intrapsychic structure. Traumatic loss of omnipotence stands as the birth of the PO, with the loss of good-enough mother (GEM) and the consequent appearance of PO. Templates for TEND listening and the Stockholm Syndrome of infancy are presented. Shifts in analytic listening from content to the process of telling and the experience of the moment in the telling are crucial elements of SAO/TEND. Several case illustrations are presented.
