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The author addresses trauma by emphasising its negativising aspect. He describes the negative as the way in which trauma is recorded and inscribed, the sign of the disaster but also the ultimate means of presenting, formulating and describing it. A rare means–€and perhaps the only one–€of locating the catastrophic experience, the negative also emphasises what is specific to trauma; that is, the risk of losing the representational capacity even more than the risk of coming into contact with toxic or overwhelming material. The model of trauma outlined is a dynamic one that explains a subject gathering its forces to connect the experience with the whole of his psychic life, sometimes at the cost of a negative hallucination.