Psychodynamic experience enhances recognition of hidden childhood trauma

Abstract

Background: Experimental psychology has only recently provided supporting evidence for Freud's and Janet's description of unconscious phenomena. Here, we aimed to assess whether specific abilities, such as personal psychodynamic experience, enhance the ability to recognize unconscious phenomena in peers - in other words, to better detect implicit knowledge related to individual self-experience.

Methodology and principal findings: First, we collected 14 videos from seven healthy adults who had experienced a sibling's cancer during childhood and seven matched controls. Subjects and controls were asked to give a 5-minute spontaneous free-associating speech following specific instructions created in order to activate a buffer zone between fantasy and reality. Then, 18 raters (three psychoanalysts, six medical students, three oncologists, three cognitive behavioral therapists and three individuals with the same experience of trauma) were randomly shown the videos and asked to blindly classify them according to whether the speaker had a sibling with cancer using a Likert scale. Using a permutation test, we found a significant association between group and recognition score (ANOVA: p = .0006). Psychoanalysts were able to recognize, above chance levels, healthy adults who had experienced sibling cancer during childhood without explicit knowledge of this history (Power = 88%; p = .002). In contrast, medical students, oncologists, cognitive behavioral therapists and individuals who had the same history of a sibling's cancer were unable to do so.

Conclusion: This experiment supports the view that implicit recognition of a subject's history depends on the rater's specific abilities. In the case of subjects who did have a sibling with cancer during childhood, psychoanalysts appear better able to recognize this particular history.

Figure 1. Main results.

A: Recognition scores of each rating group. Psychoanalysts [PSYAN], inexperienced professionals' [INXP] in similar and simple rating instruction condition [so called INXP-frame], cognitive behavioral therapists [CBT], experienced professionals [EP], and individuals who had the same experience of history of sibling's cancer [SE] scores when determining whether healthy adults had experienced sibling cancer during childhood, without explicit knowledge of this history. For each group, the score could vary from +84 for all perfect guesses to −84 for a complete failure and the probability that the score differed from chance was calculated using a permutation test. ANOVA combining all groups of raters: p = .0006. Computed p-value for each group of raters is indicated upon the bar (level of significance p<.009). B: Recognition p-values as a function of the mean number of errors per judge. To give an idea of the variability for each level of performance in terms of group recognition, we performed a simulation with judges having random errors and calculated the possible p values. The curve gives an idea of the p value as a function of the mean number of errors per judge, whereas the plot dispersion (vertical) reflects the variability of the p value given all possible changes in unknown parameters. Each experimental result is indicated with a large cross and superimposed on the plots curve using the same acronyms as those in figure 1A.