In the proposed study the Principal Investigator will examine the history of approaches to the conceptualization and treatment of trauma, in the West. More specifically, she will analyzed the vicissitudes of the concept of psychic trauma in the modern period, from its first formulations concerning traumatic dissociation in women, to a major case of multiple personality in 1905, to the phenomenon of """"""""shellshock"""""""" in World War I, to the psychoanalytic reconceptualizations by Ferenczi and others in the 1920's and 1930's, to the reactions to the combat neuroses of World War II, to the experiences of survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, and to current issues. By examining a series of major cruxes in the history of approaches to psychic trauma, the Investigator will show how certain basic assumptions about the nature of trauma and its cure have been a continual source of theoretical and practical difficulty. She will focus on the American, British, French, and German contributions to the field in her extensive research in the published and unpublished literature. For the more recent history and development of the concept of trauma, the Investigator will conduct interviews with key figures in the current field of trauma, as well as have interactions and discussions with psychiatrists and psychotherapists at a center committed to the treatment of victims of trauma. The outcome of the proposed research will be a book on one of the most critical and momentous topics in the human sciences.
