ABSTRACT
Traumatic experience, is by its very definition shocking, unexpected and not part of everyday predictable life. In the medical terminology from which the term originates, trauma refers to a wound or injury which is a consequence of external violence. Laplanche and Pontalis point out that
in adopting the term [trauma], psycho-analysis carries the three ideas implicit in it over to the psychical level: the idea of violent shock, the idea of a wound and the idea of consequences affecting the whole organisation.
