Psychoanalysis has always been concerned with violence, both
theoretically and as a consequence of its engagement with personal and
social hurt. In violent contexts, particularly those involving state
violence, psychoanalysis can be haunted by the impact of past and
present destructiveness in ways that creep into clinical work as well as
institutional practices.
This paper explores the relationship between psychoanalysis and state
violence through an example of a psychoanalytic relationship that
founders on a history of violence that has personal and social
ramifications. I argue that this story reveals how unresolved social
violence can haunt a psychoanalytic encounter, and also references how
political violence blocks acknowledgement and reparation.
Complications from this include the problem of how to make material of
this kind public, in the light of concerns about preserving the
confidentiality of the analytic relationship.
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