The paper gives an overview about classic psychoanalytic formulations of psychic trauma and compares them with recent contributions from trauma therapy, attachment research, and neurobiology. It focuses especially on Günter Ammon's understanding of early relationship trauma and its consequences for personality development. After reviewing relevant trauma-therapeutic approaches in contemporary psychoanalysis, Ammon's therapeutic concept for patients with early traumatizations is outlined. Finally the realization of this concept in Dynamic Psychiatry, e. g. the therapeutic setting of the clinic Menterschwaige, is described.