Can theories on complex trauma and attachment make room for Garwood’s concept of a psychic guardian?

Abstract

This review essay of a new book by GP and psychotherapist (and Nazi camp survivor), Alfred Garwood, explores the effect of severe early childhood trauma on the development of the adult. It relates how Dr Garwood was interned in a Nazi concentration camp from the age of nine months to two years old. He grew up to become a GP and psychotherapist, but his early experiences always reverberated inside him. Garwood’s efforts to cope with those reverberations led him to develop the concept of a “psychic guardian” which is explored in this article.