ABSTRACT
A traumatic disruption of the sense of self causes the subject, now in a state of anxiety, to try to rectify it. Sometimes the restoration consists of a form of behavior which, to an observer, is entirely adaptive and not apparently a traumatic product. At the other extreme, there are restorative behaviors which this same observer would consider clearly maladaptive. An example is self-mutilation:
Judy, after a considerable trust has developed in her therapist, describes how,
for her, cutting herself has a restorative effect.
