Trauma : a genealogy / Ruth Leys.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leys, Ruth.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma.

Traumatic neuroses.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Language Note:

English

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 1870's, 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, Sándor 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.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. Freud and Trauma

II. The Real Miss Beauchamp: An Early Case of Traumatic Dissociation

III. Traumatic Cures: Shell Shock, Janet, and the Question of Memory

IV. Imitation Magic: Sandor Ferenczi and Abram Kardiner on Psychic Trauma

V. The Hysterical Lie: Ferenczi and the Problem of Simulation

VI. Splinting the Mind: William Sargant and Catharsis in World War II

VII. The Science of the Literal: The Neurobiology of Trauma

VIII. The Pathos of the Literal: Trauma and the Crisis of Representation

Conclusion

INDEX

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613058386

9781283058384

1283058383

9780226477541

0226477541

OCLC:

699511313