ABSTRACT
This chapter is about relational trauma and its effect upon the development of self. Relational traumata are of immense importance. They are an aspect not only of nearly every clinical encounter but also of daily life. Most people will have had an experience, a moment of misery perhaps, a wave of desolation, or merely a flicker of such a state, triggered by something said or remembered. The moment usually passes. In some people, however, it does not. It is magnified and long-lasting, upsetting personal relations and overthrowing the ordinary feeling of the flow of existence. The following is an example.
