ABSTRACT
In psychoanalysis, the concept of trauma has had a chequered history, both in terms of its definition and of the importance attributed to it as a cause of illness in adults. The extent to which trauma effects the development of psycho-pathology is a controversial subject. Some analysts, in fact, seem to believe that the suffering afflicting patients stems from their imaginary life rather than from their “real” life. The childhood suffering of young Hans in fact had nothing to do with any traumatic event. A young child with good parents, Hans lived in an apparently calm and tranquil middle-class environment. Psychic trauma is a sudden or repeated action that proves to be damaging because the necessary protective defences are not yet ready to deal with such an overwhelming blow that cannot be understood or worked through. The Sandlers’ intuitions have been confirmed by work undertaken in the field of the neurosciences that distinguishes an explicit memoryand an implicit one.
