ABSTRACT
The question as to how processes of reparation emerge in severely traumatised patients, and where their limits are, is not an easy one to answer. For such a process to take place, the individual is confronted once again with her or his damaged inner world, which is sometimes devastated and dominated by feelings of loneliness, emptiness and despair. One could speculate as to what it is that is actually damaged by the traumatic experience. Maybe the damage is not just to the developing psychic structure, but to the integrity of exactly those processes of reparation, which under normal circumstances enable reparation in the individual. As with modern oncology, the focus would then not be on the direct structural damage, but instead on the damage to the repair mechanisms and processes (such as apoptosis, for instance) which prevent the unhindered proliferation of destructive forces.
