ARTIST STATEMENT
Stacy Berlin, Psy.D.
Starlet’s Strange World

Starlet is an amalgamation of several patients with developmental trauma.
Everything looked good yet felt “off”. She was a surrealist.

Memories lack emotion – detachment, emotional numbness
Desperate to be seen, hides uniqueness – feel monstrous
Long to belong, fit into the world – adapt, comply, or, psychic death
Master calmness and composure in the face of pain

Get along, be liked – feel inhuman
Unconsciously resign – what is the point
Psychic deadness needs to be enacted and examined
in order to regain psychical aliveness and agency.

Analysis to feel more alive
Fall into a rabbit hole – strangeness, nothingness, fear “going crazy”
Don’t protest, “freak-out” – “big” feelings destroy
Link and unlink past and present – trauma surfaces – feel impinged
Reactivated dread – driven by frightening paralyzing memories
Detached – find signs of the real to connect

Enlivening process transforms trauma
Creative responses, embrace the unreal irrespective of how strange or distressing it seems
New stories and emotional responses – renew, revive – joy
Starlet is creatively resourceful, bounces-back