Citation

Vinar MN. Am. J. Psychoanal. 2017; 77(1): 40-51.

Affiliation

Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay. marvin@belvil.net.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1057/s11231-016-9082-1

PMID

28325939

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.

Language: en

Keywords

alienation; extreme trauma; impact of catastrophic trauma; impact on subjectivity; state sponsored violence; testimonial literature and narrative; trauma and exclusion