Articulating Trauma

Trauma and Trauma Theory Trauma may be defined as an original inner catastrophe, as an experience of excess which overwhelms the subject symbolically and/or physically and is not accessible to him. This “radical and shocking interruption of the universe, but not its total destruction” means that the pain experienced by the subject is forcefully relocated into the subconscious. As Geoffrey Hartman puts it: “The knowledge of trauma… is composed of two contradictory elements. One is the traumati..