The Reality of Trauma; the Trauma of Reality

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study is particularly relevant because of COVID, and the traumatic experience we are living through together in the present. This article is, however, not, or not only, about the time of COVID: through current events we examine the psychological effects of mass trauma on the individual, the complex relationship of the me (the subject) and the we (the group, the Intersubjective), and the genesis of reality. We focus on how the outer events in the here-and-now become an internal, subjective reality, and what role is played by the group, the intersubjective community, in the genesis of reality. Between the outer reality and the individual’s internal, psychic reality we distinguish a third reality: we reality. In our interpretation, we reality is an intersubjective construct, the result of a process of symbolization: a dream in the field created through the interaction of individuals interacting in the here-and-now.