ABSTRACT
The psychoanalytic and psychiatric literature concerning the creation and development of psychic trauma is extensive and covers a wide range of approaches and interpretations. This chapter deals with the generation of trauma in adolescence, exploring the extent to which this is a period of particular vulnerability to trauma and examining the impact that early or recent psychic traumatization can have on the disturbances that occur during adolescence. Edith Jacobson sees psychic trauma as a narcissistic disorder within the ego involving conflicts between different representations of the self. The quantity, duration, and quality of the external stimulus/event are among the factors that can affect traumatization, and a role is also played by the stability of the individual's psychic structure, the stage of emotional development, the completion of maturation, the integrity of internal objects, and the resolution of internal conflicts. Trauma therapy, regardless of the therapeutic approach, is directed towards reconstruction of the trauma and its psychic integration.
