Trauma and Object Relationship

This paper was written for the last number of Volume 50 of our Journal, which marks the close of half a century of its history. Of all the official organs of the International Psycho-Analytical Association it is the only journal which has lived long enough to reach this respectable age. The first organ, the Jahrbuch, managed to live for six volumes only; the next one, the Zentralblatt, which appeared for some years parallel with the Jahrbuch, went only to four volumes and it is even debatable whether the fourth volume is genuine or not, and lastly the Internationale Zeitschrift and Imago ceased publication with Volume 26. True, the end of the first two periodicals was brought about by insoluble disagreement among the collaborators causing a number of them to leave the psychoanalytical movement, but in the case of the Zeitschrift and Imago it was the political changes that made it impossible to continue to use the German language for publishing scientific articles on psychoanalysis.

The Editor suggested to the contributors to this anniversary number that they should choose a theoretical topic whose discussion would illustrate the development of psychoanalytic thinking during these 50 years. Trauma seemed to me a suitable subject for this purpose, because the last fundamental additions to its theory were made by Freud in 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' which appeared in 1920, the year in which the Journal started its career. True, there have been some minor additions and clarifications since that date but the main structure of the theory has remained apparently unchanged. What I intend to show in this paper is that, in spite of this impression, our ideas about the dynamic structure of the trauma and its role in pathogenesis and character development have almost imperceptibly undergone a profound transformation which is already having far-reaching repercussions, both in our technique and in our theory. This is rather a bold statement so it will be advisable to st