Trauma and Symbolic Objectification: A Representational Gate to Capture and Persistent Re-Experiencing

Trauma is often attributed to overwhelming events, yet comparable exposures yield divergent outcomes. The Symbolic Objectification Hypothesis (SOH) proposes that a decisive vulnerability lies not primarily in arousal magnitude, but in representational format under activation: whether threat can be held in symbolic object-mode—as a bounded, labelable, and manipulable object-of-cognition—while executive continuity remains intact, or whether threat becomes agency-inflated and immersive, increasing the probability of defensive dominance capture. SOH builds on evidence that threat mobilization is graded and can coexist with organized cognition (Phelps & LeDoux, 2005; Etkin et al., 2011), and specifies a mechanism: when symbolic objectification fails during encoding or reactivation, attention narrows, sequencing destabilizes, and hippocampal-dependent temporal/contextual binding becomes unreliable—raising the likelihood that later retrieval reinstates a present-tense reliving state rather than a dated autobiographical memory (Brewin et al., 1996; Ehlers et al., 2012; Passaro, 2025). The model is operationalized noncircularly via repeated indices of object-mode state and restoration capacity under activation, coupled with performance-based discontinuity and recovery markers indexing capture dynamics. SOH yields falsifiable predictions and a clinical implication: outcomes should improve when trauma-focused engagement is paired with explicit training in agency deflation via symbolic objectification—sustaining object-mode contact with preserved continuity—rather than relying on distress reduction or detachment alone.