According to the author, a trauma serves a defensive screening function. Following the summation of many fantasied traumas, which are screens for old unresolved narcissistic injuries, a susceptibility to the development of a major traumatic event sets in. Such an event is actually an externalized internal conflict, and has an effect comparable to acting out. It protects the individual against severe regression or disintegration by aiding the ego in the establishment of a phobic type of defense and bolstering the mechanisms of denial, dissociation, and avoidance.

With detailed accounts of three cases, Murphy demonstrates that the relation