Trauma encapsulates many experiences and can be formed and expressed throughout all stages of life––from a parent who is overly controlling and doesn’t give their child the space to develop their own sense of self, leading to stifling the child’s individuality, to a person with an abusive partner they are afraid of leaving, along with leaving behind the accompanying gaslighting and emotional abuse they have grown accustomed to. Often, with trauma, creating space from a relationship can feel like abandoning yourself.
These resources explore trauma and trauma bonding from a psychodynamic perspective, and the ways these experiences continue to shape adult relationships and emotional life.
“When someone with borderline dynamics or narcissistic traits experiences unresolved early trauma, emotional distress doesn’t stay contained in the present moment. Instead, the psyche reacts as though something familiar and dangerous has returned.”
– Dr. Anthony Mazzella
Q&A
Trauma bonding is a profound psychological pattern where individuals form intense attachments to manipulative and abusive relationships, despite recognizing the harm. It is characterized by manipulation, invalidation, emotional abuse, and other forms of abusive behavior. Trauma bonding tends to result in a profound inner deadness and an inability to acknowledge loss, leading to pathological mourning.
Trauma can create a split between a “fantasy world” and the “real world.” In the fantasy world, there is the promise of certainty, control, greatness, and omnipotence, along with immediate gratification and “internal propaganda” that offers recognition and salvation. This world becomes intoxicating because it provides an escape from painful truths, while real emotionality is suppressed and replaced with more transactional ways of relating. The real world, by contrast, feels dangerous and unpredictable, forcing the person to face grief, loss, loneliness, humiliation, and shame.
In trauma bonds, early experiences of “pathological mourning” shaped by parental nonrecognition, emotional absence, or lack of mutual pleasure can link pain and dysfunction with love. In cases like alcoholic or emotionally unavailable mothers, unprocessed early losses are often carried into adult relationships. The child may flee into the relationship itself, where even conflict or being screamed at feels like exclusive attention. Over time, love becomes associated with conflict, pain, and suffering.
This is a form of long-term relational trauma where one partner may externalize blame and distort reality to maintain a fragile self-image and protect self-esteem. While the behavior is abusive, psychodynamic perspectives also look at what keeps the other person staying. In trauma, the relationship can feel familiar or compelling due to earlier unmet needs and unprocessed experiences. This can involve repetition compulsion and identification with the abuser.
After traumatic childhood experiences, later relationships may become a source of emotional holding after early deprivation. After major loss, there can be a collapse of inner and external structures, leaving psychic and emotional depletion. In this state, adult relationships can become a psychic refuge driven by idealization and rescue fantasies that restore safety and cohesion.
Narcissism Decoder Podcast Episodes:
The Trauma Bond: A Radically Different Perspective
Learn how trauma bonds form, why people become deeply attached to harmful relationships, and how understanding these dynamics can support healing and growth.
Trauma Bonding: How to Break the Addictive Cycle
Learn how to break the trauma-bonding cycle by understanding the deeper emotional forces that keep people attached to harmful relationships.
Why Leaving an Abusive Relationship is Hard: Trauma Bonds Explained in an Interview
Learn how trauma bonds create powerful emotional attachments that can make it difficult to leave harmful relationships and break repeating patterns.
Breaking the Spell: Healing After Narcissistic Abuse
Learn how narcissistic relationships can create trauma bonds and lasting emotional attachments, and what it takes to truly break free.
Entangled! Pathological Lovers and Malignant Narcissism
Learn how trauma bonds make toxic relationships difficult to leave, and how healing creates a path toward freedom, empowerment, and growth.
How Does Childhood Trauma Shape Narcissistic Traits?
Learn how childhood shame, bullying, and emotional neglect can contribute to narcissistic development and shape the need for narcissistic defenses later in life.
Surviving Covert Narcissistic Parenting: When the Parent Is There, But Not There
Learn how covert narcissistic parenting can shape emotional development and make understanding your feelings and setting boundaries more difficult.
Articles
Why Borderline and Narcissistic Traits Turn Small Moments Into Big Emotional Reactions
Learn how early relational trauma can shape perception in borderline and narcissistic dynamics, making ordinary interactions feel emotionally overwhelming and intensely personal.
Covert Narcissistic Parent Signs and How Adult Children Can Heal
Learn how covert narcissistic parenting can create subtle relational trauma that leaves adult children feeling confused, guilty, and disconnected from their own emotional reality.
What Are Dissociative Disorders and How Do You Treat Them?
Learn how depersonalization and derealization can develop as protective responses to trauma, stress, or overwhelm, and why these symptoms can persist long after the triggering experience has passed.
“Healing starts when the past and present begin to separate—when current experiences no longer carry the full weight of earlier trauma.”
– Dr. Anthony Mazzella
