ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the dimension of “desynchronization” with the Otherness as one of the temporal hallmarks of traumatic psychopathology. The temporal synthesis of “retention” and “protention” produces the “intentional arc” that underlies human experience. Because trauma cannot be integrated into the dialectic movement of the individual’s narrative, it tends to remain verbally ineffable. The traumatized person tends to live in a world of “alienation,” with no integration between the temporal dimensions of past, present, and future. The lack of temporal structure, which characterizes traumatic experiences, points to the original co-dependency between our psychic life and our being-in-time. Ultimately, the very nature of trauma produces a disruption of its temporally perceived dimension.
