ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the evolution of how we have come to understand trauma, and the diversity of ways in which theorists and practitioners have tried to define the experience. Here, we assess how different definitions of subjectivity lead to these divergent definitions of what constitutes the essence of trauma. The chapter explores early definitions from Freud and Jung, to Winnicott and Bowlby. Attachment theory, analytic theory and family systems theory show how trauma connects experience of emotion, relation, body states and psyche. Each of these theories shows how relationship interacts with the formation of the personality. Tracing the history of trauma theory shows how divergent symptoms in varied populations came together to constitute the experience that we now refer to as ‘trauma’. This chapter also shows how the body stores traumatic experience, requiring language-based theories to account for the body’s role in remembering.
