[Transmission of trauma: unconscious fantasy and activation by external reality, with special reference to the...

Herzog sees trauma as the incursion of certain kinds of hyper- and hypo-stimulation on the child or adult, interrupting the capacity for play (play as the creative acquisition of reality) and occasioning a change in the mode of play. The upshot is interactive acting-out in the relationship, in which the pre-programmed participation of the partner is essential. The author draws upon the case history of a man of the "second generation" to demonstrate how failure on the part of the parents to work through a trauma of their own meant that it was passed on to the son and his relationship to his wife. The return of the parents' trauma manifested itself most clearly in the necessity felt by the son to organise his own sexuality in a particular way.