ABSTRACT
The “airless worlds” concept developed by Steven Stern pinpoints and articulates one of the most challenging problems in working with certain psychotherapy patients – the relentlessly enduring obsession some traumatized people have with their traumatizing parent. In an agonized expression of disorganized attachment, these patients are held hostage by their unrelenting anger with and despair about the “negating” parent they have or had. The negated, toxically objectified adult child, trapped in an externally derived identification, cannot mourn the tragedy of not having (or not having had) an affirming parent. The author reflects on the role of psychoeducation in clinical work with this group, and further ways of helping these patients develop a durable experience of a self of their own.
