Paper short abstract:

The paper explores what happens when people interpret trauma through a local conception of psychoanalysis. It elaborates on local psychoanalytical understandings and therapeutical practices amongst Argentine victims, where the verbalisation of suffering and truth telling are a social fact.

Paper long abstract:

Amongst victims of the last authoritarian regime (1976-1983) in Argentina trauma is neither unspeakable nor isolated in people's mind. The traumatic experience of torture and disappearance is rather profoundly social and expressible. There exists a 'social etiquette of pain' amongst victims that, from a psychoanalytical stance, favors public expressions of mourning rather than private grief and prefers the verbalization of distress rather than silence. Methodologically, these everyday 'therapies' are a rich empirical source for an ethnographer. Moreover, this paper explores conceptually what happens when people interpret the social world, its injustices and suffering through this particular cultural conception of psychoanalysis.

First, the paper elaborates on a local understanding and therapeutical practice of psychoanalysis. In Argentina, psychoanalysis is widespread and significantly describes social relations in urban Argentina. Against this backdrop of psychoanalysis as a practice and a worldview, everyday life becomes impregnated with a social form of therapy and the verbalization of distress turns into a social fact among victims in Argentina. Sharing and analyzing suffering belongs to this particular social world and constitutes the moral victim.

Secondly, the paper argues that truth telling is an important moral practice among victims in Argentina. The notion that truth frees people from grief differs from standard stories of loss when the location of the dead bodies is unknown and those responsible for the killing remain silent about their illegitimate warfare. Moreover, when people frame their previous suffering psychoanalytically, truth becomes a moral life project where victims ought to express their pain.