Psychoanalysis.  2023 Jul;34(3):54-60. 10.18529/psychoanal.2023.34.3.54.

Trauma, Guilt, and Conspiracy: The Zero Process and the Superego

• Fernando J

• KMID: 2545036
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.18529/psychoanal.2023.34.3.54

Abstract

This paper explores the links between trauma, guilt, and the superego, and through this exploration attempts to make some addi- tions to our understanding of individual dynamics, group regression, and group delusions. The author first describes his concept of the zero process as the form of mental functioning that is a product of the breakdown of the construction of the present moment during trauma. These unconstructed, bits and pieces memories exist as present experiences or future expectations. From time to time, in relation to traumas that are either individual or developmental, inner objects which have the quality of immediate presences form—we usually call them introjects. The author suggests that these are best conceptualized as zero process structures in having many characteristics of the zero process, and that the obligatory connection between trauma and guilt, and the manner of transmission of culture and the superego, and of conspiracy theories and other group delusions, can be better and more deeply understood once the part that zero process structures play in all these phenomena is brought into focus.

Keyword

Trauma; Superego; Psychological theory