ABSTRACT
The Conclusion pulls threads together and connects the thought presented to clinical problems faced today. It had already struck Henry Krystal and Marion Michel Oliner that some of the patients Marty was writing about shared traits with concentration camp survivors, although their histories differed. As the concept of opératoire functioning was adapted to different clinical worksites, it developed shades of nuance that brought it closer to providing elements of a theory of trauma: a lack of inner form giving rise to inner muteness could rival the most terrible nightmare. There seems to be traumatic potential submerged in adaptation to the requirements of the ordinary, which leads to levels of exhaustion not owed to the repression of latent meaning. Those affected do not appear to have anything to lean back unto, once their personal resources are about to get exhausted. Understanding these unrepresented states of mute mental exhaustion will probably, the chapter argues, also drawing on Virginia de Micco’s contributions, help to understand more dramatic cases in which trauma experienced is so severe that the full pain of it cannot be accessed without the presence of someone whose quality of listening can gradually start to transform it.
