Maggie's Farm

Psychoanalytic theorists have been struggling with trauma theory since Freud first abandoned it when he realized that fantasy can have as large an impact on a person as can real things. He more or less discovered the realm of what we shrinks call "psychic reality."

My take on it all is that dramatic events of all sorts affect people, but that the impact depends on their pre-existing character structure. One person's horror can be another person's excitement.

Dr. X discussed a useful concept of emotional trauma: Something which rattles or undermines the supposedly-reliable aspects of one's reality.

I have never been able to understand most of that "self-psychology" stuff he talks about, but I do know that everybody is born defective in some ways, and that emotionally-traumatic events or circumstances, generally unavoidable if you live long enough, change people in all sorts of ways. Sometimes they are opportunities for growth and maturation, sometimes they are simply destructive. Often, the destruction leaves a permanent scar, if not an open wound.