Abstract
My aim is to discuss the immediate effects of extreme trauma and to speculate on its long term effects. The formulations associated with the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome generate an overly medicalized view of trauma, grossly underestimating its devastating impact. Catastrophic traumatic experience rips a hole in the representational continuity of psychic life; neither representations nor narrations are generated. Instead, a representational emptiness occurs, such that what has taken place cannot be shared or transmitted. The cathartic word becomes a robotic mocking of the interchange between human beings. There is no internalization, no ability to make the experience subjective. The resulting deep splitting in the psyche is characteristic of extreme traumatism, and its balance or perpetual working through is elaborated in this paper.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Altounian, J. (1990). Les chemins d’Arménie [The paths of Armenia]. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
Améry, J. (1995). Par-delà le crime et le châtiment: Essai pour surmonter l’insurmontable [Beyond crime and punishment]. Arles: Actes Sud.
Antelme, R. (1996). La especie humana [Human species]. Montevideo: Trilce.
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Augé, M. (1995). Non-places. Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London: Verso.
Auster, P. (1982). The invention of solitude. New York: Penguin.
Bauman, Z. (2001). Modernity and the Holocaust. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Bauman, Z. (2004). Wasted lives: Modernity and its outcasts. Somerset, NJ: Wiley.
Benjamin, W. (1930). Theories of German fascism. In W. Benjamin, M. W. Jennings, H. Eiland & G. Smith (Eds.) Selected writings, 1927–1930 (R. Livingston, Trans.) (pp. 312–321) Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Danielian, J. (2010). A century of silence. Terror and the Armenian Genocide. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 70, 245–264.
de Certeau, M. (1987). Corps, torturés, paroles capturées [Bodies, tortured, words bound]. In L. Giard (Ed.) Michel de Certeau (pp. 61–70). Paris: Gerog Pompidou.
Freud, S. (1912–1913). Totem and taboo. Standard Edition, vol 13 (pp. 1–161). London: Hogarth.
Gil, D. (1990). El terror y la tortura [Terror and torture]. Uruguay: EPPAL.
Gómez Mango, E. (2004). El llamado de los desaparecidos: sobre la poesía de Juan Gelman [The cry of the disappeared: about the poetry of Juan Gelman]. Montevideo: Cal y Canto.
Gondar, J. (Issue Ed) (2017). Special issue. trauma and subjectivity: A South American perspective. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 77(1).
Grünberg, K., & Markert, F. (2012). A psychoanalytic grave walk. Scenic memory of the Shoah. On the transgenerational transmission of extreme trauma in Germany. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 72, 207–222.
Hollander, N. C. (1992). Psychoanalysis and state terror in Argentina. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 52, 273–289.
Kertész, I. (1996). Patria, Hogar, Pais [Homeland, Home and Country] Conference lecture given at the Kammerspiele, Munich “Reden über das eigene Land” [Speaking about one’s homeland]. In Számüzött nyelv [Exiled language] (pp. 92–111). Budapest: Magvetö Publishers.
Kertész, I. (1998). Un instante de silencio en el paredón: el holocausto como cultura [An example of silence of captivity: The Holocaust as part of culture]. Barcelona: Herder.
Levi, P. (1965). The reawakening. New York: Collier Books Editions.
Levi, P. (1981). Unfinished business. In Collected Poems of Primo Levi. (R. Feldman & B. Swann, Trans.). London: Faber and Faber.
Michelet, J. (1815–1850). Mother death: the Journal of Jules Michelet, 1815–1850. E. K. Kaplan (Ed & Trans.) Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press.
Niederland, W. G. (1980). Folgen der Verfolgung des Uberlebenden-Syndrom. Seelenmord [Consequences of persecution: the survivors’ syndrome, soul murder] Frankfurt am Main: Editon Suhrkamp.
Prince, R. (2009). The self in pain: The paradox of memory. The paradox of testimony. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 69, 279–290.
Prince, R. (2010). First they came… response to Danielian’s. “A century of silence”. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 70, 265–269.
Prince, R. (2015). The Holocaust after 70 years. Holocaust survivors in the United States. American Journal of Pychoanalysis, 75, 267–286.
Puget, J. & Kaës, R. (Eds.) (1989). Violence d’état et psychanalyse [State violence and psychoanalysis]. Paris: Dunod.
Semprún, J. (1997). Literature or Life. (L. Coverdale, Trans.). New York: Viking.
Semprún, J. (2007). Interview. Jorge Semprún, The art of fiction No. 192. Interview by Lila Azam Zanganeh. Paris Review, 180, 163.
Viñar, M. & Ulriksen de Viñar, M. (1989). Exil et torture [Exile and torture]. París: Denoël.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Address correspondence to Dr. Marcelo N. Viñar, at: http://www.apuruguay.org/user/2162/contact
*This paper is part of the Special Issue, Trauma and Subjectivity: A South American Perspective (Gondar, 2017).
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Viñar, M.N. The Enigma of Extreme Traumatism: Trauma, Exclusion and their Impact on Subjectivity* . Am J Psychoanal 77, 40–51 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-016-9082-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-016-9082-1