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Cure ou répétition du trauma ?
Abstract
Some examples taken from an on-going study emphasize the inherent dangers in the fact of "telling" intolerable experiences. The return of the affects can be devastating. Some strategies enabling the narrator to be "saved" are evoked. Examples are taken here from the victims and the torturers of the Shoah.
The moment is opportune for a renewed look at what we understand about patient consent to treatment. Until recently, little reference to informed consent could be found in the literature, as though it has never been a preoccupation for psychoanalytic practitioners. Yet several post-Freudian authors offer reasons to suppose the risk of misunderstandings about consent. In fact, the very discovery of transference, replete with unrequited infantile wishes, implies that at some level, at some moment, in every psychoanalytic treatment there will be moments when "consent" will to some extent vacillate. A distinction, justifiable on etymological and intersubjective grounds, is made between patients' consent as a cognitive, somewhat passive, acceptance and patients' assent as an arduous, conflicted, partial disagreement with the symbolically limiting details of analytic work. It is in the discovery and working through of unexpected unconscious responses to aspects of the analytic setting and to the analyst that patients become "informed" of the unique risks to their psychic equilibrium the process poses, as well as its benefits. Instead of a static and unitary contractual event, informed consent in psychoanalysis is more properly conceived as a multilayered, repetitively posed, and necessarily ambivalent process of good-enough assenting over time.
The professional faced with the child’s traumatism
Current events mobilize the thinking of childcare professionals around the question of the traumatism, its treatment, and the provision of care. After giving a broad outline of the metapsychological construction of the concept of traumatism, we examine the contribution of the psychoanalytic theory of the traumatism, emphasizing how it is centred on subjectivity and closely bound up with the individual history of each subject.
Surviving a major historical trauma has consequences that are difficult to live with. Survivors who remain silent are often condemned to a desiccated existence, a dried-out life, a death in life. Survivors who speak out run an even greater risk. Telling their ghastly tale may trigger somatic consequences, psychotic episodes, or even suicide. As to the psychoanalytic cure, the free association it requires carries its own danger: negative therapeutic reaction in sometimes extreme forms. Avoidance of horror may turn into avoidance of life itself. Awful as it may seem, this avoidance of life may represent a victory over a menacing chaos. Should we as analysts accept the risk of endangering such a victory, no matter how unsatisfactory? The psychoanalytical injunction to speak out may trigger an upsurge of shame and terror. Is subjectivation always possible? This paper is about what happens when denial and splitting strategies are suspended, when 'crypts' are opened. Is there an analytic 'poros' allowing for a controlled return of affects? Is there a therapeutic solution to the problem of telling a wreckage without being caught in it? The dangers of 'telling' will be discussed in regard to new analytic strategies and new interpretive registers. When the 'silent psychic sharing' proves insufficient, some analysts go so far as to take part in the shame, share the grief, 'lend their own psyche', become a 'double' of the analysand, accept the existence of 'sanctuaries'. To what effect?
Au fond des ténèbres De l'euthanasie à l'assassinat de masse. Un examen de conscience. Ce travail a fait l
- Gitta Sereny
Gitta Sereny, Au fond des ténèbres. De l'euthanasie à l'assassinat de masse. Un examen de
conscience. Ce travail a fait l'objet d'une thèse de Joseph Torrente (non publiée).
tout ce que je te demande, c'est que tu m'écoutes, non que tu parles ou que tu fasses quelque chose ; je te demande uniquement de m'écouter… Alors, s'il te plaît
- Écoute
Écoute, tout ce que je te demande, c'est que tu m'écoutes,
non que tu parles ou que tu fasses quelque chose ;
je te demande uniquement de m'écouter…
Alors, s'il te plaît, écoute et entends-moi.
rue de la Glacière 75013 Paris RÉSUMÉ — Quelques exemples extraits d'un travail en cours soulignent les dangers inhérents
- Et Si Tu Veux Parler
- Juste Un Instant… » Rachel
- Rosenblum
Et si tu veux parler, attends juste un instant… »
RACHEL ROSENBLUM
16, rue de la Glacière
75013 Paris
RÉSUMÉ — Quelques exemples extraits d'un travail en cours soulignent les dangers inhérents au fait de « dire » des expériences intolérables. Le retour des affects peut être dévastateur. Des stratégies permettant le « sauvetage » du narrateur sont évoquées. Les
exemples sont empruntés ici à des victimes et des bourreaux de la Shoah.
die dem sprachlichen Ausdruck unerträglicher Erfahrungen inhärent sind. Die Rückkehr der Affekte kann verheerende Auswirkungen haben
- Zusammenfassung Einer Laufenden Untersuchung Entstammende Beispiele Unterstreichen Die Gefahren
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG — Einer laufenden Untersuchung entstammende Beispiele unterstreichen die Gefahren, die dem sprachlichen Ausdruck unerträglicher Erfahrungen
inhärent sind. Die Rückkehr der Affekte kann verheerende Auswirkungen haben. Strategien werden geschildert, die die « Rettung » des Erzählers erlauben können. Die Beispiele
wurden hier den Zeugnissen von Holocaustopfern und –tätern entliehen.