Debates on child abuse and trauma in psychoanalysis and feminism: The shift from non-trauma to trauma-based psychotherapy discourse

The aim of this thesis is to explore the currently dominant discourse on child abuse and trauma as it has come to be understood in the last 30 years in British psychoanalysis.
This research mainly draws on a psychoanalytic framework, to show how a specific way of conceptualising trauma and child abuse has led to a shift from a non-trauma based psychoanalysis in the UK to a trauma-based one. In order to present the core elements of this discourse, I closely read psychoanalytic (British and French) and second-wave feminist texts that are relevant to this topic, against the background of the wider trauma paradigm and memory studies, which are also presented in the thesis. In the British psychoanalytic tradition in particular in attachment theory and contemporary Kleinianism this shift towards trauma has not yet been studied in the context of wider discussions that are occurring in cultural and social studies. Hence, the shift towards trauma-based psychoanalysis is routinely seen as a positive step forward, without examining it in the context of wider discussions about trauma and its meaning. The shift from a non-trauma based to a trauma-based psychoanalysis signifies a parallel
shift towards the desexualisation of psychoanalysis, which I also examine. The introduction of trauma as a central concept in psychoanalysis has meant a shift from a
discourse of desire to a discourse of needs, and this is one of this thesis' central findings.

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