“[U]nable to integrate their traumatic memories, they seem to lose their capacity to assimilate new experiences as well. It is … as if their personality has definitely stopped at a certain point, and cannot enlarge any more by the addition or assimilation of new elements.”19 He predicted that unless they became aware of the split-off elements and integrated them into a story that had happened in the past but was now over, they would experience a slow decline in their personal and professional functioning.
