ABSTRACT
The economic factor par excellence in psychoanalytic theory is the experience of trauma. The Reality Principle includes the realization that when a wish arises there must be some waiting for its fulfillment and some steps taken to satisfy it. A certain amount of infantile sexuality having the specific qualities remains as a foreign territory in the mind and can, under certain conditions, invade preconscious-secondary process-Reality Principle functioning. Traumatic experiences are those that cannot be dealt with by progressive integration into the Preconscious but must be walled off and kept repressed at the sacrifice of further differentiation. The factor associated with the inner psychic organization is the developmental stage of the libido in the child. Another factor of importance in the psycho-economic concept of trauma is the issue of time that is, how suddenly the child is confronted with tasks that demand rapid transitions from Pleasure Principle to Reality Principle functioning.
