The Nature of Trauma and Dissociation

Dissociation, unformulated experience and therapeutic change

In this audio reflection, Dr Donnel Stern refers to dissociation as the unconscious intention to keep unwanted experience from reaching an articulated or formulated state. Enactment is understood as the interpersonalisation of this dissociation. He thus explains his theory of unformulated experience as an interpersonal and relational way of conceptualizing the unconscious that provides new possibilities for working with trauma.