ABSTRACT
My interest in the issue of “non-represented mental states” began with the study of the effects of trauma. The most prevalent theories on the subject assume that the causes of trauma are unavailable to consciousness, but that the victim enacts or repeats past experiences whose meanings become evident only subsequently through the analysis of the present situation in which they are enacted. These theories, described by Bohleber (2010) in his extensive review, postulate that “The trauma becomes the “black hole” in the psychic structure” (p. 94). (This line of reasoning has been generally accepted by psychoanalysts and taken as evidence of Nachträglichkeit [deferred action]). It is in this sense that the original experience causing the trauma has come to be commonly referred to as “non-represented”, but this designation entails some logical difficulties in need of further investigation, which prompted my interest in the issues of representation.
