ABSTRACT
In what ways may trauma be considered the shadow-side of adventure – similar in form though oppositional in meaning – that draws one in rather than out? Trauma, like adventure:
is certainly part of our existence, directly contiguous with other parts which precede and follow it; at the same time, however, in its deeper meaning it occurs outside the usual continuity of this life. Nevertheless, it is distinct from all that is accidental and alien, merely touching one’s outer shell. While it falls outside the context of life, it falls, with this same movement, as it were, back into that context again . . . it is a foreign body in our existence which is yet somehow connected with the center; the outside, if only by a long and unfamiliar detour, is formally an aspect of the inside.
