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The concept of trauma is one that has been carefully reviewed and redefined over a considerable period throughout the existence of psychoanalytic thinking. The special attention paid to the concept of trauma is perhaps related to its close connection with the concept of reconstruction, which, unlike other important ideas in psychoanalysis, has a particularly technical implication. In addition, as Harold Blum (1977) has pointed out, reconstruction has been a most significant tool in the development of theory as well as a check on theoretical constructions and formulations. Blum has also suggested that the careful and continuing evaluation of data and inference is essential to psychoanalytic investigation and to the clarification of controversies involving genetic reconstruction and early development.
The technical application of reconstruction in psychoanalysis arose historically in the matrix of the early work of Sigmund Freud, who linked the development of neurotic symptoms to seduction trauma reported by his patients. Clinical experience led to amendment of the seduction theory and paved the way for discovery of the world of infantile and childhood sexuality. This enabled the further exploration of conflict, derived from the struggle between instinctual drives that pressed for expression and defenses mobilized against their eruption, leading to compromise formations manifested