Abstract
It has been argued that the only satisfactory approach to appreciate the compound meanings and aftermaths of trauma from the Holocaust would be through studying the entire lives of individual survivors. As a way of preserving the experiential and historical memory of the Holocaust and in responding to the relative neglect of the individual child and adolescent survivor in Holocaust trauma research, a comprehensive psychological understanding of an exemplary adolescent survivor’s life narrative is forged to comprehend the long-term effects of Holocaust trauma from a lifespan, developmental perspective. Principles of psychobiographical research approached through Plessis’ (2017) 12-step model are applied within a psychoanalytic and psychodynamic framework to explore the entire life of Elie Wiesel so that it can be made meaning of psychologically. In employing phenomenologicalhermeneutic life-narrative analysis (PLA) as a method of analysis, this study concludes Elie’s life being characterised by a progression from deep despair to a triumphant achievement of faith. Although his life following liberation was characterised by a psychological space Gerson (2009) describes as a ‘dead third’, Elie, it has been argued, was able to make use of his internal resources partly fostered in his childhood to reengage an empathic ‘live third’ that would allow him to live with a sense of integrity and meaning into his old age. Analysis of Elie’s life suggests that his childhood trauma coloured his internal world, ultimately informing the course of his perceived role in the external world. Keywords: Holocaust, Elie Wiesel, psychobiography, traumatic stress, psychoanalysis, the dead third.
M.A. (Clinical Psychology)