The question surrounding etiological factors informing the emergence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to preexisting personality deficits is explored in relation to recent advances in understanding the indissolubility between attachment pathology and developmental trauma. Universal generalizations regarding the causal relation between structural self-deficits and the emergence of PTSD remain suspended. The nature of traumatic representation continues to be a contested area of empirical and theoretical debate, the consequences of which may inevitably inform clinical technique.