No: 26 / MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY: MISERABLE MINORITY COPING WITH CLINICAL ENCOUNTER

  • MILD TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY: MISERABLE MINORITY COPING WITH CLINICAL ENCOUNTER

    Pascale Bruguiere, Marie-Christine Pheulpin, Krinio Benfredj
    Translated by: Sanem Tayman
    Summary :

    While patients who have sustained Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) manifest dufferent symptoms that generally improve and disappear quite quickly, there is a "miserable minority" who reports abnormal and persistent severe impairments. A clinical study that associates neurological examination, neuropsychological and psychological assessments is currently being carried out among a number of these patients; the ones who come to hospital, in a department of rehabilitation just to be recognized in the difficulties they feel in most cases, and less frequently, because they are looking for a treatment. In this multidisciplinary research, our objective is to investigate the psychodynamic aspect; in this way, we examine psychological functioning by offering each of these patients a clinical investigation, combining an interview and psychoanalytical projective tests. Are these patients, who have all suffered from a real traumatic attack, able to manage with it psychologically? Considering the injury, we decide to study the fates of aggressivity, complemented by a focus on libidinal, objectal and narcissistic movements. When we find aggressive representations, we focus on the question of activity and passivity and on the possible fluctuations between these two positions. What do these different movements reveal as indicators of psychological treatment? Are libidinal movements still identifiable? Our examination of these questions and our outline of the various methods of treating trauma are based on the in-depth study of the 15 Rorschach and the TAT.

    Keywords : Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, projective tests, drive, passivity activity, trauma