ABSTRACT
Every phase of theory-making in psycho-analysis has influenced the current concept of trauma and its clinical evaluation. This chapter divides the total span of analytic researches into five stages. In the first phase, 1885 to 1905, while Freud was postulating the basic concepts for the understanding of the unconscious-dream work, primary and secondary processes, the psychic apparatus, symptom formation, and the aetiology of hysteria and obsessional neurosis -the concept of trauma played a very vital and significant role. The second phase, 1905 to 1917, is characterized by systematic attempts at working out infantile sexual development and psycho-analytic metapsychology. The period of 1917 to 1926, the third phase, gives us the ‘final phase’ of Freud’s metapsychological thinking. The fourth phase, 1926 to 1939, is launched by the revision of the concept of anxiety and inaugurates the beginnings of ego-psychology proper. The last phase is from 1939 to today.
