Search

“Trauma,” which derives from the Greek word for wound, hurt, or defeat, denotes either physical-organic injury (e.g., to the skull or brain) or psychological hurts that are more than the ego can cope with and that plunge one into a helpless panic, for example, the sexual seduction of children (Childhood), which S. Freud (1856–1939) regarded as the decisive factor in neurosis. When Freud abandoned this monocausal hypothesis in favor of an unconscious infantile fantasying, he still did not contest the pathogenic role of traumatizing in actual life. Psychologically, no “objective” in…

1. Definitions The term “neurosis” really means nervous sickness, but from the days of S. Freud (1856–1939) it has taken on the sense of psychoneurosis. Disturbances in development (§2) at specific phases, as well as unconscious anxieties and their defense, result in a conflict between the claims of impulse (Libido) and a constitutionally and biographically weakened ego that manifests itself in certain symptoms and character distortions. More importance is now attached to the role of early pathology of the self. In behavior therapy neurosis is seen as the result of emotiona…