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Micro-trauma
Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Injury explores
the “micro-traumatic” or small, subtle psychic hurts that build up to undermine a person’s
sense of self-worth, skewing his or her character and compromising his or her relatedness
to others. These injuries amount to what has been previously called “cumulative” or “rela-
tional trauma”. Until now, psychoanalysis has explained such negative influences in broad
strokes, using general concepts such as psychosexual urges, narcissistic needs, and sepa-
ration-individuation aims, among others. Taking a fresh approach, Margaret Crastnopol
identifies certain specific patterns of injurious relating that cause damage in predictable
ways; she shows how these destructive processes can be identified, stopped in their tracks,
and replaced by a healthier way of functioning.
Seven different types of micro-trauma, all largely hidden in plain sight, are described
in detail, and many others are discussed more briefly. Three of these micro-traumas—
“psychic airbrushing and excessive niceness,” “uneasy intimacy,” and “connoisseurship
gone awry”—have a predominantly positive emotional tone, while the other four—“unkind
cutting back,” “unbridled indignation,” “chronic entrenchment,” and “little murders”—
have a distinctly negative one. Margaret Crastnopol shows how these toxic processes may
take place within a dyadic relationship, a family group, or a social clique, thereby causing
collateral psychic damage all around.
Using illustrations drawn from psychoanalytic treatment, literary fiction, and every-
day life, Micro-trauma outlines how each micro-traumatic pattern develops and manifests
itself, and how it wreaks its damage. The book shows how an awareness of these patterns
can give us the therapeutic leverage needed to reshape them for the good. This publica-
tion will be an invaluable resource for psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, mental
health counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and for trainees and
graduate students in these fields and related disciplines.
Margaret Crastnopol (Peggy), Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Seattle Psychoanalytic
Society and Institute, and a supervisor of psychotherapy at the William Alanson White
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. She is also a training and super-
vising analyst at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles. She writes
and teaches nationally and internationally about the analyst’s and patient’s subjectivity;
the vicissitudes of love, lust, and attachment drives; and varieties of micro-trauma. She
is in private practice for the treatment of individuals and couples in Seattle, Washington.
PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A NEW KEY BOOK SERIES
DONNEL STERN
Series Editor
When music is played in a new key, the melody does not change, but the
notes that make up the composition do: change in the context of continuity,
continuity that perseveres through change. Psychoanalysis in a New Key
publishes books that share the aims psychoanalysts have always had, but
that approach them differently. The books in the series are not expected to
advance any particular theoretical agenda, although to this date most have
been written by analysts from the Interpersonal and Relational orientations.
The most important contribution of a psychoanalytic book is the com-
munication of something that nudges the reader’s grasp of clinical theory
and practice in an unexpected direction. Psychoanalysis in a New Key
creates a deliberate focus on innovative and unsettling clinical thinking.
Because that kind of thinking is encouraged by exploration of the some-
times surprising contributions to psychoanalysis of ideas and findings
from other fields, Psychoanalysis in a New Key particularly encourages
interdisciplinary studies. Books in the series have married psychoanalysis
with dissociation, trauma theory, sociology, and criminology. The series
is open to the consideration of studies examining the relationship between
psychoanalysis and any other field—for instance, biology, literary and art
criticism, philosophy, systems theory, anthropology, and political theory.
But innovation also takes place within the boundaries of psychoanaly-
sis, and Psychoanalysis in a New Key therefore also presents work that
reformulates thought and practice without leaving the precincts of the
field. Books in the series focus, for example, on the significance of per-
sonal values in psychoanalytic practice, on the complex interrelationship
between the analyst’s clinical work and personal life, on the consequences
for the clinical situation when patient and analyst are from different cul-
tures, and on the need for psychoanalysts to accept the degree to which
they knowingly satisfy their own wishes during treatment hours, often to
the patient’s detriment.
Vol. 25 Vol. 17
Micro-trauma: A Psychoanalytic Love and Loss in Life and in
Understanding of Cumulative Psychic Treatment
Injury Linda B. Sherby
Margaret Crastnopol
Vol. 16
Vol. 24 Imagination from Fantasy
Understanding and Treating Patients to Delusion
in Clinical Psychoanalysis: Lessons Lois Oppenheim
From Literature
Sandra Buechler Vol. 15
Still Practicing: The Heartaches and
Vol. 23 Joys of a Clinical Career
The Interpersonal Tradition: The Sandra Buechler
Origins of Psychoanalytic Subjectivity
Irwin Hirsch Vol. 14
Dancing with the Unconscious:
Vol. 22 The Art of Psychoanalysis and the
Body-States: Interpersonal and Psychoanalysis of Art
Relational Perspectives on the Danielle Knafo
Treatment of Eating Disorders
Jean Petrucelli (ed.) Vol. 13
Money Talks: In Therapy, Society,
Vol. 21 and Life
The One and the Many: Relational Brenda Berger & Stephanie Newman
Approaches to Group Psychotherapy (eds.)
Robert Grossmark & Fred Wright
(eds.) Vol. 12
Partners in Thought: Working
Vol. 20 with Unformulated Experience,
Mended by the Muse: Creative Dissociation, and Enactment
Transformations of Trauma Donnel B. Stern
Sophia Richman
Vol. 11
Vol. 19 Heterosexual Masculinities:
Cupid’s Knife: Women’s Anger and Contemporary Perspectives from
Agency in Violent Relationships Psychoanalytic Gender Theory
Abby Stein Bruce Reis & Robert
Grossmark (eds.)
Vol. 18
Contemporary Psychoanalysis Vol. 10
and the Legacy of the Third Reich: Sex Changes: Transformations in
History, Memory and Tradition Society and Psychoanalysis
Emily A. Kuriloff Mark J. Blechner
Vol. 9 Vol. 4
The Consulting Room and Beyond: Prelogical Experience: An Inquiry
Psychoanalytic Work and Its into Dreams & Other Creative
Reverberations in the Analyst’s Life Processes
Therese Ragen Edward S. Tauber &
Maurice R. Green
Vol. 8
Making a Difference in Patients’ Vol. 3
Lives: Emotional Experience in the The Fallacy of Understanding
Therapeutic Setting & The Ambiguity of Change
Sandra Buechler Edgar A. Levenson
Vol. 7 Vol. 2
Coasting in the Countertransference: What Do Mothers Want?
Conflicts of Self Interest between Contemporary Perspectives in
Analyst and Patient Psychoanalysis and Related
Irwin Hirsch Disciplines
Sheila F. Brown (ed.)
Vol. 6
Wounded by Reality: Understanding Vol. 1
and Treating Adult Onset Trauma Clinical Values: Emotions
Ghislaine Boulanger That Guide Psychoanalytic
Treatment
Vol. 5 Sandra Buechler
Prologue to Violence: Child Abuse,
Dissociation, and Crime
Abby Stein
Micro-trauma
A Psychoanalytic Understanding of
Cumulative Psychic Injury
Margaret Crastnopol
First published 2015
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 Margaret Crastnopol
The right of Margaret Crastnopol to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Crastnopol, Margaret, author.
Micro-trauma: a psychoanalytic understanding of cumulative psychic injury/
authored by Margaret Crastnopol.
p.; cm. — (Psychoanalysis in a new key ; vol. 25)
I. Title. II. Series: Psychoanalysis in a new key book series ; v. 25.
[DNLM: 1. Stress, Psychological—etiology. 2. Psychoanalytic
Therapy—methods. WM 172.4]
RC506
616.89′17—dc23
2014030466
ISBN: 978-0-415-80035-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-80036-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-87889-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK
For Charles, Zachary, Evan, and Julia Purcell
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Contents
Acknowledgments xii
1 Cumulative Micro-trauma that’s Hidden in Plain Sight:
An Overview 1
2 Unkind Cutting Back and Its Navigation 29
3 Connoisseurship Gone Awry 53
4 Uneasy Intimacy: A Siren’s Call 84
5 Psychic Airbrushing and Excessive Niceness 115
6 Chronic Entrenchment and Its Collateral Damage 137
7 Unbridled Indignation 169
8 Little Murders and Other Everyday Micro-assaults 185
9 Toward Repair 214
References 236
Index 245
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many special individuals for their contributions to my
efforts to write this book. In the most fundamental way, my late parents Dr.
Philip Crastnopol and Madeleine Lasko Crastnopol helped me believe enough
in myself that I could concentrate on trying to grasp what needed to be known.
Their unstinting love, generosity, and intelligence launched and helped shape
me to become the person and the psychoanalyst that I am. My sister Joan
Friedland accompanied me caringly as we weathered our respective chal-
lenges as our parents’ children and our children’s parents.
I am fortunate to have an extraordinarily supportive family—my hus-
band Charles and my three children Evan, Zachary, and Julia Purcell.
Their fresh, sterling insights about both the inner and outer world have
greatly enriched my understanding, and the gracious sacrifices they made
on my behalf as I buried myself in my study to write meant the world to
me. Charles has been my mainstay in this as in every other venture I’ve
undertaken throughout our life together. His brilliance, wittiness, equa-
nimity, good humor, and love nourish me on a daily basis.
Raul Ludmer is a fount of intuition, wisdom, and foresight. His depth of
understanding and attuned encouragement have been immeasurably impor-
tant to me for many years. Dodi Goldman has been a major interlocutor,
muse, model, and spur for me. A remarkable friend and colleague, his wise
and incisive observations and prodigious scholarship enriched each chapter
either directly or implicitly. I am thoroughly in his debt. Robin Shafran, my
“psychoanalytic sibling,” is the quintessential friend and co-traveler who
has been by my side through thick and thin for more than 30 years. Keenly
perceptive, sensitive, and thoughtful, Robin always went directly to the heart
of the matter in helping me shape and refine my thinking. Graciously read-
ing and listening to earlier iterations of my ideas, Ladson Hinton kept me
focused on the larger philosophical aspects of psychic phenomena. Deborah
Acknowledgments xiii
Ashin’s creative, warm-hearted, and sensitive perceptions of human nature,
as well as her great skill as a wordsmith and writer, added a special dimen-
sion to my own writing process. Daphne Tomchak, with her razor-sharp
intellect and broad range of knowledge, challenged me to be even more
direct and rigorous in formulating my arguments. As someone exceedingly
wise in the ways of the world and of our field in particular, Karol Marshall
has been a most generous guide and mentor to me over the years. Naomi
Bach Yellen taught me much about scholarship, resilience, devotedness, and
the uses of humor, for which I am extremely appreciative. It would have
been next to impossible for me to have worked on, much less completed
this book, without the devoted involvement of Maria Anderson and Denise
Antoine, who watched over our hearth and home when I couldn’t.
Years ago, the late Stephen Mitchell, a wellspring of penetrating and
creative thought, gave me what felt like his imprimatur and encouragement
to proceed with my own variant of contemporary psychoanalytic thinking.
I was also fortunate enough to work during that formative period with the
dynamic Philip Bromberg, whose influence on me was highly beneficial.
I am profoundly grateful to them both, as well as to the many other gifted
supervisors and faculty members I came to know at the William Alanson
White Institute. Speaking of the institute’s impact, I heartily thank Don
Greif and Ruth Livingston, the current editors-in-chief extraordinaire of
its journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, for their invaluable help with
earlier versions of several chapters.
As the editor of the series of which this book is a part, Donnel Stern
was a wonderful support and a crucial guiding light throughout the con-
ceptualizing, researching, and writing process. I benefited greatly from the
background influence of Lewis Aron, Judy Kantrowitz, Margaret Black
Mitchell, and Stephen Seligman, all of whom spurred me onward through
their encouraging words and, especially, their inspiring example. My
thanks also to all the others who gave constructive input along the way to
earlier drafts of this work.
A number of close friends and colleagues each added something unique
to my life and therefore to the growth of this project. They are Alejandro
Avila Espada, Richard Bradspies, Sandra Buechler, Anjali Dixit, Glen
Gabbard, the late Emmanuel Ghent, Robin Greenstein, Laura Martin,
Casey and Doug Rosenberg, Wendie Rosenberg, Dan Sadler, Gail Wittkin
Sasso, and Susan Sodergren. Each of these individuals has my deep admi-
ration and hearty thanks.
I am enormously grateful to the incomparable John Kerr, whose minis-
trations deepened and broadened my psychoanalytic scholarship, furthered
xiv Acknowledgments
my self-expression, and sharpened my writing capabilities. His wealth of
knowledge of the field and his sensitivity to clinical currents as well as
to the reader’s experience of spending time with me were of inestimable
value. Kristopher Spring’s finely tuned copy-editing caught much that my
eye missed. His editorial organizational skills are nonpareil, and he unflap-
pably brought the manuscript home. I was most fortunate to have his help.
The great expertise and gracious supportiveness of Kate Hawes, Senior
Publisher at Routledge, made what seemed impossible, possible for me.
Without her stalwart presence over the years, there would have been no
book. Further thanks go to Kirsten Buchanan and Susan Wickenden, also at
Routledge, whose savvy and patience helped turn manuscript files into final,
publishable pages.
Finally, I am greatly appreciative of and beholden to the women and men
in my psychoanalytic practice who allowed me to accompany them on their
journey toward analytic self-understanding and growth. The real people
who inspired the examples I offer in this book have, through their own tra-
vails, taught me a great deal of what I’ve come to know about accumulated
hurts, including how to tolerate working on them and pursuing their repair.
I humbly thank those who so graciously permitted me to write about aspects
of their lives and their clinical work.
Chapter 1
Cumulative Micro-trauma that’s
Hidden in Plain Sight
An Overview
“Oh, sweetheart,” an elderly woman crooned to her grandson, a late ado-
lescent now verging on manhood, “That jacket of your father’s looks
marvelous on you—so much better than it ever did on him!” Caught up
short by the last phrase—“better than it ever did on him”—the young man
inwardly puffed up and cringed at the same time. He couldn’t help but
note both the compliment and the sideways swipe at his father, who was in
the next room and could easily have overheard the grandmother’s words.
The inner confusion carried over into his psychoanalytic session the
next day, when the young man tried to sort out his response to the unnerv-
ing comment. He was proud to have his masculinity savored, pleased at
this minor Oedipal victory, and guilty over having been praised at his
father’s expense—and having enjoyed it. But further thoughts, some
rather insidious, cropped up in his mind. If his grandmother could cast
aspersions on her own son’s (that is, his father’s) appearance behind his
back, what might she be saying about the grandson himself when he was
out of earshot? Did his grandmother perhaps enjoy elevating him over his
father, and if so, why? How much love was actually there, underneath her
doting tone? This changing body of his was beginning to feel a bit like a
lightning rod. Could he afford to relish its new features, or was that asking
for trouble? Well, maybe he was just being hypersensitive, letting himself
get drawn into a kind of introspective morass by that bothersome psycho-
analyst of his.
A throwaway remark such as the elderly woman’s double-edged flat-
tery can easily be dismissed or go unnoticed entirely. Injurious relating on
the grossly abusive end of the scale is the time-honored stuff of history,
fiction, drama, and contemporary psychoanalytic theory. But negative
interactions that are evanescent can ultimately also have a strong psychic
impact. Like sharp rocks only vaguely if at all visible beneath the water
