Editorial: Trauma and Basic Trust

A recent conference in Stockholm on faith in psychoanalysis prompted me to refresh my knowledge of what Bion (1) has written on this topic, as well as of a dissertation by the Danish philosopher K E Løgstrup, The ethical claim (2). I think that their ideas have a special relevance for the work with persons, whose basic trust has been severely injured.

In his classical work Childhood and Society (3), Erik Homburger Erikson denotes “Basic trust” versus “Basic distrust” as the basic conflict of the first of the eight ages of men. His description and analysis of “trust” and the consequences of early injuries of basic trust is still valid in many respects. He underlines that the regaining of basic trust is a necessary condition for a meaningful therapy with those who have been damaged in this way.

Karen Horney (4) has formulated a similar dichotomy. She says that the personality of the child develops around two nuclei, forming two basic patterns. In the first there is a basic feeling of confidence that one's striving for love, belonging and autonomy may be more or less realised. In the other there is a basic feeling of helplessness and isolation in a potentially hostile world. Her further theoretical concepts build on these basic patterns.

Both Erikson and Horney, as well as other psychoanalytic theorists, who in one way or other have discussed “basic trust” or similar concepts, describe trust as something which comes into being as a consequence of the way the child has been cared for. It seems to be implied that under certain conditions no trust would come into existence. Here Løgstrup has another view. He asserts that trust exists, as a given aspect of human life, much as we are given certain organs. For the trust to be damaged there has to be treachery. Whatever has happened to a person, he has to handle the situation his trust brings him into. As trust is primordial, it belongs to the manifestations of life which Løgstrup calls free, sovereign or spontaneous. Love is an