Introduction

In fact, traumatized individuals tend to experience a “loss of time,” along with symptoms such as the re-experiencing of the traumatic shock, and trauma-related intrusive thoughts and emotions as well. The temporal perception of trauma also produces a disruption in the person’s sense of identity and reality. Distortions of the sense of time, which characterize traumatic experience, also occur when using substances such as lysergic acid diethylamide, marijuana, and alcohol, and in certain psychiatric illnesses as well. The rationale for this is that, as contemporary neuroscience has shown, our perception of the temporal properties of objects and events often shows to be “out of phase” when compared to its measurement made possible by high-precision scientific instruments. When a holding context is missing, in which painful affect can become integrated, traumatized individuals dissociate self-threatening emotions from their overall experience. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.