On March 1st 2025 Raluca Soreanu will be delivering the keynote talk of the Winter Conference at the Guild of Psychotherapists, ‘Brokenness: Fragments and Parts in Psychoanalysis’, in London, where she will be in conversation with Shalini Masih
In this talk, I discuss the topic of radical plasticity of the psyche in relation to trauma. I argue that psychic fragmentation is a ubiquitous operation of the psyche. The psychoanalytic clinic of our times is traversed by refences to a range of ‘dissociative’ processes, and forms of splitting and fragmentation, but these processes often remain enigmatic and underspecified. In dialogue with Sándor Ferenczi, I argue that we can talk about the psychic ‘life’ of the fragments that result from the trauma and produce further and important differentiations in this ‘culture of fragments’. I unpack some of Ferenczi’s unique vocabulary on fragmentation, which includes references to fractures, splits, atomisations, pulverisations, leakages, detritus, but also new formations, protective membranes, vesicles, expansions, contagions, and inner growths. I also discuss some of the implications of focusing on radical plasticity and on forms of psychic reconstruction for the contemporary debates in trauma theory. I argue that the capacity for rearranging the fragments and making new compositions out of the split psychic fragments is one of the most important anchors for working clinically with trauma.
Those interested in attending in person, please email Tom Goodwin at t.w.goodwin@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.
A link for those wishing to attend virtually will be sent out before the day.
