With recourse to Freud's idea of the death instinct, the author advances a theoretical foundation for the clinical experience of severe traumatization in “Eros or Thanatos? The Struggle for a Narrative of Trauma.” At an individual level, the central feature of extreme traumatization is the failure to establish an empathic link between perpetrator and victim. In Laub's view, the “empty circle” (a feeling of deficient structure and representation) develops even before the splitting into good and bad object images occurs. The main characteristics of severe trauma are (a) amorphous presence not limited by time, space, and action; (b) a specific tinting and formation of the entire internal representation of reality, across numerous generations, as an unconscious structural principle; and (c) total ignorance of the trauma, with complete obliteration of any memory of it. The author exemplifies his views with reference to detailed case descriptions.