ISBN:
9781138505292
,
9781138505308
Language:
English
Pages:
xiv, 170 Seiten
Year of publication:
2019
Series Statement:
Psychoanalysis in a new key book series 47
Series Statement:
Psychoanalysis in a new key book series
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Amir, Dana, author Bearing witness to the witness
DDC:
616.85/210651
Keywords:
Psychic trauma Treatment
;
Holocaust survivors Psychology
Abstract:
"Bearing Witness to the Witness examines the different methods of testimony given by trauma victims and the ways in which these can enrich or undermine the ability of the reader to witness them. Years of listening to both direct and indirect testimonies on trauma has lead Dana Amir to identify four modes of witnessing trauma: the "metaphoric mode", the "metonymic mode," the "excessive mode" and the "Muselmann mode." In doing so, the author demonstrates the importance of testimony in understanding the nature of trauma, and therefore how to respond to trauma more generally in a clinical psychoanalytic setting. To follow these four modes of interaction with the traumatic memory, the various chapters of the book present a close reading of three genres of traumatic witnessing: Literary accounts by Holocaust survivors, memoirs (located between autobiographic recollection and fiction), and 'raw' testimonies taken from Holocaust survivors. Since every traumatic testimonial narrative contains a combination of all four modes with various shifts between them, it is of crucial importance to identify the singular combination of modes that characterizes each traumatic narrative, focusing on the specific areas within which a shift occurs from one mode to another. Such a focus is extremely important, as illustrated and analysed throughout this book, to the rehabilitation of the psychic metabolic system which conditions the digestion of traumatic materials, allowing a metaphoric working through of traumatic zones that were so far only accessible to repetition and evacuation"--
Abstract:
When language meets the traumatic lacuna : four modes of traumatic testimony -- Autobiographical fiction or fictional autobiography? Georges Perec's W, or the memory of childhood -- The post-traumatic dyad : Agota Kristof's The notebook -- The center mode as opposed to the marginal mode : Yehiel Dinur (Ka-Tzetnick)'s House of dolls -- Transcending the traumatic real : six variations in six stories by Ida Fink -- The traumatic lacuna as the negative possession of the other : Aharon Appelfeld's "Bertha" -- From the collapse of signifiers to the reconstruction of language : Robert Antelme's The human race -- The lacuna : reading children's testimonies -- Modes of memory, modes of healing -- Awakening the narrator : clinical work with modes of testimony -- Epilogue : Hiroshima mon amour and the command of boundary violation
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
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