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ViolenceandTime:Traumatic urvivals

In recentyearspsychiatryhas shown an in-creasing nsistence on the directeffects ofexternalviolence in psychicdisorder.Thistrend has culminated in the studyofpost-traumatictressdisorder, whichde-scribesan overwhelming xperienceofsudden,orcatastrophic vents, in whichthe response o the event occurs n the of-ten delayed,anduncontrolledrepetitiveoccurrenceof hallucinations, lashbacksandother intrusivephenomena.As it isgenerallyunderstoodtoday,traumaticdis-ordersreflectthe directimpositionon themind of the unavoidablerealityof horrificevents, the taking-over-psychicallyandneurobiologically-of the mind by anevent that it cannot control.As such it isunderstoodas the most real,and also mostdestructivepsychicexperience.I will sug-gest briefly hat the problemof trauma snot simplya problemof destructionbutalso,fundamentally,an enigmaof survival.It is only in recognizing raumaticexperi-ence as a paradoxical elationbetween de-structivenessand survival hat we can alsorecognizethe legacyof incomprehensibil-ity at the heart of catastrophic xperience.The problemof trauma s raisedmost di-rectly n one of the firstmajorworksontrauma n thiscentury,Freud'sBeyondhePleasurePrinciple.Thispiece,written n theaftermathof World WarI,hasbeen calleduponasshowinga directrelationbetweenFreud'stheoryof traumaand historical io-lence,a directnesspresumablyeflected n atheoryof traumahe produces. wouldpro-posethat this workrepresentsFreud's or-mulationof traumaas a theoryof thepeculiarncomprehensibilityf human sur-vival.It is only by reading he theoryof indi-vidual rauma n BeyondhePleasurePrinciplen terms of its inherently emporalstructure-the structure f delayedexperi-ence thatwillultimately inkindividualtrauma o the problemof historical raumain Freud's aterwork-that we can under-stand the fullcomplexityof the problemofsurvival t the heartof humanexperience.Beyond he PleasurePrinciplendeed openswith Freud'sperplexedobservationof apsychicdisorder hat appears o reflect theunavoidableand overwhelming mpositionof violentevents on the psyche.Facedwith the strikingoccurence of what werecalled the warneuroses n the wake ofWorld War I, Freud is startledby the

emergenceof a pathologicalcondition-the repetitiveexperienceof nightmaresand relivingsof battlefieldevents-that isexperienced ike a neuroticpathologyandyet whosesymptomsreflect, n startlingdirectnessand simplicity,nothingbut theunmediatedoccurrenceof violentevents.Freudthus compares t to the symptomsof anotherlong-problematicphenomenon,the accidentneurosis.The relivingof thebattle can be compared,he says,to thenightmareof an accident:

Dreamsoccurringntraumatic euroseshave hecharacteristicf repeatedlyring-ingthepatientback nto thesituation fhisaccident, situation romwhichhewakesupinanotherfright.Thisastonishedspeople ar oolittle .. Anyonewhoaccepts t assomethingelf-evidentthat dreams houldputthembackatnightinto thesituation hatcaused hemto fallillhasmisunderstoodhenature fdreams.Standard dition18,p.13)The returningraumaticdream perplexesFreudbecause t cannot be understoodntermsof anywishorunconsciousmeaning,but is, purelyandinexplicably,he literalre-turn of the eventagainst he willof the oneit inhabits.Unlikethe symptomsof a nor-malneurosis,whosepainfulmanifestationscanbe understoodultimately n terms ofthe attemptedavoidanceof unpleasurableconflict,the painfulrepetitionof the flash-backcanonlybe understoodas the absoluteinability o avoidanunpleasurableventthat has not been given psychicmeaning nany way.Intrauma, hat is, the outsidehasgone inside withoutanymediation.Takingthis literalreturnof the pastas a model forrepetitivebehaviorn general,Freudulti-matelyargues, n BeyondhePleasurePrin-ciple,that it is traumaticrepetition, atherthanthe meaningfuldistortionsof neurosis,that definesthe shapeof individual ives.Starting romthe accidentneurosis o ex-plainthe natureof individualhistories,Be-yond hePleasurePrinciple an thus be saidto askwhatit would meanforhistory o beunderstoodas the historyof trauma.Freud'scomparison f the warexperienceto that of the accident ntroducesanotherelement aswell, however,which adds to thesignificanceof this question.For it is notjustanyevent that createsa traumaticneu-rosis,Freud ndicates,but specifically se-vere mechanicalconcussions,railwaydisastersand otheraccidentsinvolvinga

risk o life (18, 12).What Freudencoun-tersin the traumaticneurosis s not the re-actionto anyhorrible ventbut, rather, hepeculiar,andperplexing xperienceof sur-vival.If the dreamsandflashbacks f thetraumatized husengageFreud's nterest tis becausetheybearwitness to a survivalthat exceedsthe veryclaims andconscious-ness of the one who endures t. At the heartof Freud'srethinking f history, n BeyondthePleasurePrinciple, wouldthus pro-pose, is the urgentandunsettlingquestion:Whatdoes t mean to survive?The intricaterelationbetween traumaandsurvivalndeed arises n this text not, asone might expect, because of a seeminglydirectand unmediated relationbetweenconsciousnessandlife-threatening vents,but ratherthroughthe veryparadoxicalstructureof indirectnessn psychicaltrauma.Indeed,Freudbeginshis discus-sion of traumaby noting the bewilderingfact that psychological raumaoccurs notin strictcorrespondence o the body'sex-perienceof a life-threat-through thewoundingof the body;a bodily injury,Freudnotes, works s a ruleagainstthedevelopmentof a neurosis 18, 12,em-phasisadded). Indeed,survival or con-sciousness does not seem to be a matter ofknownexperienceat all. Forif the returnof the traumatizing vent appears n manyrespects ike a wakingmemory, t cannonethelessonly occurin the mode of asymptomora dream.Thus if a life-threatto the bodyis experiencedas the directin-flictionand the healingof a wound,trauma s suffered n the psyche precisely,it would seem, because it is not directlyavailable o experience.The problemofsurvival,n trauma, hus emergesspecifiallyas the question:what does itmean forconsciousnesso survive?Freud's peculations n the causesof rep-etitioncompulsion n relation o the originsof consciousness an indeedbe understoodasattempting o grasp he paradoxicalela-tion between survival ndconsciousness.Freudsuggests hat the developmentof themindseems,at first, o be verymuchlikethe developmentof the body:consciousnessarisesout of the need to protect the ittlefragmentof substancesuspended n themiddleof an externalworld, which wouldbe killedby the stimulationemanating romthese if it werenot providedwith a protec-

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tive shieldagainststimuli 18, 27) Unlikethe body,however,whichprotects he or-ganismby means of a spatialboundary e-tweeninside andoutside,the barrier fconsciousness s a barrier f sensationandknowledge hat protectsby placingstimula-tion withinan orderedexperienceof time.What causestrauma, hen, is a shockthatappears o workverymuch like a threat othe body'sspatial ntegrity,but is in fact abreak n the mind'sexperienceof time:

We may, think, entatively enture o re-gard hecommon raumatic eurosis s anextensive reachbeingmade ntheprotec-tive shieldagainst timuli.Thiswouldseemto reinstate he oldnaive heory fshock .. [It]regardsheessenceof theshockasbeing he directdamageo themoleculartructure.. of thenervousys-tem,whereaswhatweseek o understandare he effectsproduced n theorgan fthe mind.It is causedbylackof anypre-parednessoranxiety. 18, 31)The breach n the mind-the awarenessofthe threatto life-is not causedby a purequantitiveamount of stimulusbreakingthroughthe body, Freudsuggests,but pre-cisely by fright, he lackof preparednessto takein a stimulusthat comes tooquickly.It is not, simply,that is, the literalthreateningof bodilylife, but the fact thatthe threatis recognizedas suchby themind onemoment oo late.The shock ofthe mind'srelationto the threat of deathis thus not the directexperienceof thethreat,but precisely he missingof this ex-perience,the fact that, not being experi-enced in time,it has not yet been fullyknown.And it is this lackordirectexperi-ence that, paradoxically, ecomes the basisof the repetitionof the nightmare:Thesedreams reendeavouringo masterthestimulusretrospectively,ydevelopingtheanxietywhoseomissionwas hecauseof thetraumatic eurosis.18,32)The returnof the traumaticexperience nthe dream s not the signalof the directexperiencebut, precisely,of the attemptto overcomethe fact that it was not direct,to attempt to masterwhat wasneverfullygrasped n the firstplace.Not having trulyknownthe threat of death in the past,thesurvivors forced,continually, o confrontit overand overagain.Forconsciousnessthen, the act of survival, s the experienceof trauma, s the repeatedconfrontationwith the necessityand impossibilityofgrasping he threat to one's ownlife. It is

because the mind cannot confrontthepossibilityof its death directly hat survivalbecomes forthe humanbeing, paradoxi-cally,an endlesstestimonyto the impossi-bilityof living.Fromthisperspective,he survival ftrauma s morethanthe fortunatepassagepasta violentevent,a passage hat is acci-dentally nterrupted y reminders f it, butthe endless nherentnecessity f repetitionwhichultimatelymay eadto destruction.The postulationof a drive o death,whichFreudultimately ntroduces n BeyondhePleasurePrinciple,wouldseemonlyto real-ize the realityof the destructive orcethatthe violenceof history mposeson the hu-manpsyche, he formationof historyas theendlessrepetitionof previous iolence.Ifwe attendclosely,however, o Freud'sde-scriptionof the traumaticnightmare f theaccident,we find a somewhatmorecomplexnotionof what s missed,andrepeated,nthe trauma. n the description f the acci-dent dream, ndeed,Freuddoesnot simplyattribute he traumaticfright o the dreamitself,but to whathappensuponwakingup:Dreamsoccurringntraumatic euroseshave hecharacteristicf repeatedlyring-ingthepatientback ntothesituation f

hisaccident, situationromwhichhewakesup in anotherfright.If fright s the termby whichFreudde-fines the traumaticeffect of not havingbeen prepared n time, then the traumaofthe nightmaredoes not simplyconsist inthe experiencewithinthe dream,but intheexperience f waking rom t. It is theexperienceof waking ntoconsciousnessthat, peculiarly, s identifedwith the reliv-ing of the trauma.And as such it is notonlythe dreamthat surprises onscious-nessbut, indeed, the verywaking tselfthat constitutes the surprise:he fact notonlyof the dreambut of havingpassedbe-yond it. What is enigmatically uggested,that is, is that the traumaconsistsnot onlyin havingconfronteddeath,but in havingsurvived, recisely,withoutknowing t.What one returns o, in the flashback, snot the incomprehensibility f the eventof one's neardeath,but the very ncom-prehensibilityof one's own survival.Rep-etition, in otherwords, s not the attemptto grasp hat one has almostdied, butmore fundamentallyand enigmatically,the veryattempt to claimone's ownsur-

vival. If history s to be understoodas thehistoryof trauma, t is a historythat is ex-periencedas the endlessattempt to as-sume one's survival s one'sown.It is this incomprehensibility f survival,wouldsuggest,that is at the heartofFreud's ormulationof the death drive.Freudcompares he beginningof the his-toryof the organism n the drive as the re-sponseto an awakeningnot unlikethat ofthe nightmare:

Theattributes f lifewereatsome imeawokenninanimatematterbytheactionof a force of whose naturewe can form noconception ... The tension which thenarose nwhathadhithertobeen aninani-matesubstancendeavoredo cancel tselfout. Inthisway hefirstdrive ame ntobeing; hedrive o returno theinanimatestate. (18, 38)

At the beginningof the drive,Freudsug-gests, is not the traumaticimpositionofdeath,but the rather he traumatic awak-ening to life. Lifeitself, Freudsuggests, san awakeningout of death forwhichtherewas no preparation.The originof the driveis thus precisely he experienceof havingpassedbeyonddeath withoutknowing t.And it is in the attempt to masterthisawakening o life that the driveultimatelydefines its historicalstructure:failingtoreturn o the moment of its own act of liv-ing, the drivepreciselydeparts nto the fu-ture of a human history.Thishistorywill be developedmorefully nFreud's aterwork,MosesandMonotheism,whichexamines he delayedexperienceoftrauma n the historyof an entirepeople.What I wouldpreliminarilyuggesthereisthat such a history-individual orcollec-tive-bears with it the weightof a paradox:that externalviolence is felt most,not in itsdirectexperience,but in the missingof thisexperience; hat trauma s constitutednotonlyby the destructive orce of a violenteventbut by the veryact of its survival. fwe areto register he impactof violence wecannot,therefore, ocate it onlyin the de-structivemoment of the past,but in an on-goingsurvival hatbelongsto the future.Itis becauseviolenceinhabits, ncomprehen-sibly, he verysurvival f thosewhohavelivedbeyondit that it maybe witnessedbest in the futuregenerations o whomthissurvivals passedon.

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