Chapter 1: The Concept of the Reconstruction of Trauma

The early formulations of the psychoanalytic theory of psycho-pathology were cast in a traumatic mold. Freud's initial therapeutic efforts led to memories of childhood traumata which Freud (Breuer and Freud, 1895) believed were essentially experiences of sexual abuse prior to the age of 8. He became convinced that the sexual experiences described to him by his patients had occurred in their childhood. In addition to the involvement of parents in infantile seductions, he also spoke of teachers and nursemaids, servants and siblings. The siblings who had already been seduced by an adult tended to seduce younger siblings, an early example of the repetition of trauma, identification with the abuser or aggressor, and the tendency for seduction trauma to occur in a pattern and setting of a seductive, familial atmosphere. Freud (1896a, p. 169) concurrently noted constitutional factors in the choice of hysteria or obsessional symptoms. The traumatic experience of the past had