ABSTRACT
The external world can easily be transformed into a source of trauma due to both the increase in aggressive stimuli from the media and the extreme narcissization of a Western individualist social system. Trauma can be constructive, acting as a mental organizer, or be disruptive and disorganizing. The plasticity of the ego, the capacity to underestimate the potential traumatic impact of a situation, the forming of the trauma by means of wrapping oneself in protective anguish are all elements that protect against the pathogenic force of a specific harmful stimulus. The affects 'of others' are to a large extent own. The bodies of the child and mother coexist in tight communion in a type of unique, shared body. From the very start, the inner world of the infans favours the distortion of outside reality. The primitive 'reality ego', which can distinguish between the external and the internal, is soon replaced by the purified 'pleasure-ego'.
