ABSTRACT
The idea of trauma involves a consideration of external factors; in other words it belongs to dependence. In more evolved patients and those capable of representation, the traumas of the primary relationship are also expressed in dreams in which the analyst can appear in place of the traumatic object of the past. The word destiny indicates the potential course of a person’s life and corresponds to his specific nature, or unique set of peculiarities: an unconscious preconception inscribed in each person that urges him to realise his creative potential. Julien Green gives a very effective illustration of emotional trauma in his classic essay “The dead mother”, in which he analyses the effect of maternal depression on the child. The close association between emotional trauma and psychopathological development allows people to intuit the degree of complexity of each patient’s therapeutic course.
