In this article, the author chronicles the emergence of two interrelated themes that crystallized in his investigations of the phenomenology of emotional trauma over the course of more than 19 years. One pertains to the context embeddedness of emotional trauma and the other to the claim that the possibility of emotional trauma is built into our existential constitution. The author finds a synthesis of these two themes—trauma’s contextuality and its existentiality—in the recognition of the bonds of deep emotional attunement we can form with one another in virtue of our common finitude. Grasping the relationality of finitude holds significant ethical implications.
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