One might at this point ask: as opposed to what? In other words, a psychoanalysis of….the Symbolic, the Imaginary, neurosis…? In fact, it might be better to argue that it’s not a so much a case of a psychoanalysis of the Real in opposition to, say, the Symbolic, but rather …
It seems Otto Rank was right after all: there is such a thing as birth trauma. The only thing is, rather than affecting the newly born baby, or even the mother, it now seems it’s the father who is the one who is traumatised. To quote from the report in …
One of the enduring legacies of the London bombings, whose tenth anniversary falls this July, is psychological. According to a recent BBC news story, ‘hundreds may have been traumatised’1 The key point about this story is that it is referring to people who may have just been ‘passing by’ when …
There are two ways to think about trauma. The first, and the one that I’ve consistently emphasised in the writings on this blog, is as a manifestation of the Real, as an encounter with the Real. In fact, to be traumatised is essentially to touch the Real (or perhaps it …
At one point near the end of the Watchmen graphic novel, and in the film of the same name, Dr Manhattan tells his companion and lover Laurie that he has been blinded by a shower of tachyons that he attributes to a nuclear bomb being detonated by the ‘villain’ of …
A while ago I wrote a post on trauma and, closely related to this, one on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of the key points that I highlighted in those posts, and which I think is worth reiterating, is the fact that even though many people experience at least one …
In my post on Lacan’s concept of the Real I highlighted the fact that the Real can be seen as an effect of the Symbolic order as opposed to being ‘outside’ of it, which still seems to be a commonly held notion amongst many Lacanians.1 But how does this relate …
The latest US-led air strike on Syria, purportedly as punishment for Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons on the town of Douma last week, reminds me of Baudrillard’s short book of essays on the first Gulf War The Gulf War did not take place.1 The third essay, which bears the …
In my previous post I began to explore the question of whether psychotherapy in this country is left-wing or at least whether it has left leanings. I posed this question in the context of the recent UK election and Jeremy Corbyn’s surprise ‘victory’ (he lost but you wouldn’t know it), …
There are a number of ways to consider psychological trauma, and perhaps the most common one is that the individual is overwhelmed by an event which they struggle to come to terms with. This may either be an event in their early childhood, for example being sexually and/or physically abused; …
