Trauma

by Leys, Ruth

• ISBN13: 9780226477664
• ISBN10: 0226477665
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Psychic trauma is one of the most frequently invoked ideas in the behavioral sciences and the humanities today. Yet bitter disputes have marked the discussion of trauma ever since it first became an issue in the 1870s, growing even more heated in recent years following official recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a book that is bound to ignite controversy, Ruth Leys investigates the history of the concept of trauma. She explores the emergence of multiple personality disorder, Freud's approaches to trauma, medical responses to shellshock and combat fatigue, Saacute;ndor Ferenczi's revisions of psychoanalysis, and the mutually reinforcing, often problematic work of certain contemporary neurobiological and postmodernist theorists. Leys argues that the concept of trauma has always been fundamentally unstable, oscillating uncontrollably between two competing models, each of which tends at its limit to collapse into the other. A powerfully argued work of intellectual history, Trauma will rewrite the terms of future discussion of its subject.

Author Biography

Ruth Leys is professor in the Humanities Center at The Johns Hopkins University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(17)
Freud And Trauma	18	(23)
The Real Miss Beauchamp: An Early Case Of Traumatic Dissociation	41	(42)
Traumatic Cures: Shell Shock, Janet, and The Question Of Memory	83	(37)
Imitation Magic: Sandor Ferenczi And Abram Kardiner On Psychic Trauma	120	(33)
The Hysterical Lie: Ferenczi And The Problem Of Simulation	153	(37)
Splinting The Mind: William Sargant And Catharsis In World War II	190	(39)
The Science Of The Literal: The Neurobiology Of Trauma	229	(37)
The Pathos Of The Literal: Trauma And The Crisis Of Representation	266	(32)
Conclusion	298	(11)
Index	309