ABSTRACT
At ®rst, the primary orientation is likely to be to the wrong, going over and over what happened, telling and retelling the story. However, from the beginning there is some orientation to the rest of life ± for example, physical self-care, caring for dependent others, even making plans for the future. Where the shock or response to the trauma is great, the person may need others to take over even the basic needs of providing food and warmth for a period. On the other hand, the response may be to dissociate or attempt to shut out what happened by only focusing on the rest of life. The individual needs to be able to oscillate between the wrong and the rest of life. As time goes on, there is, hopefully, an increasing orientation towards the rest of life, though the pull to the wrong is always there. At any one time, one will be ®gural and the other in the background.
