ABSTRACT
It is clear from the literature on traumatic experience that there is a potential difference between ongoing neglect or abuse throughout the years of childhood and a one-off experience of, say, a road traf®c accident. While both are characterized by extreme fear, helplessness, loss of control and threat of annihilation, there is a difference between experiences that continuously repeat themselves, thus reinforcing extreme coping strategies as we have earlier outlined, and those that cut across ordinary everyday coping. There is also an important difference between trauma that is based, for example, on a structural accident and trauma that is relational in nature. Both forms of trauma are likely to result in manifestations of the kinds of symptoms outlined in the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). However, researchers have asked themselves why certain individuals who suffer, say, a serious accident appear to deal more effectively with the consequences of this than others. Briere and Scott (2006) make the point that the `listing of separately described traumas presented may give the erroneous impression that such traumas are independent of one another' (p. 10). These authors cite relevant research indicating that individuals who have experienced relational trauma, particularly in childhood, are more likely to experience later traumatic events; they refer to this as revictimization.
