Connecting After Killing: An Exploration of the Intersubjective Space between Therapist and Client

The devastation, chaos, and horror that characterize combat reveal aspects of the human condition that most individuals, and much of society, would rather remain unseen. And the reality of killing renders most individuals viscerally and existentially uncomfortable, and thus is often turned away from. Civilian psychotherapists are not immune to this. This article explores how civilian therapists’ subjectivities manifest in therapeutic work with service members who have killed or think they may have killed in combat. The experiences of previous generations of psychotherapists as well as findings from interviews with current-day clinicians point to significant ways in which the distressing and dissonant reverberations of killing in combat are manifest in the dyad between civilian therapists and service members.