Summary, Questions, & Quotes

Hollander (1992) traced the psychological and mental warfare of Argentinian dictatorship on the majority of its citizens in the 1960s and 70s. Through documenting the various forms of psychological trauma inflicted on the people, Hollander underlined the importance of thinking about sociopolitical conditions when evaluating the psyche. The family was not the only contributor of trauma to adults. Society and political conditions clearly impacted the psyche of people. Through documenting the repression and violence in Argentina, Hollander addressed sociopolitical power and its relation to trauma. I have included helpful quotes below:  285 - “The psychoanalysts who have worked alongside the Mothers offered their therapeutic services when needed or requested, often in nontraditional settings and without fees. They postulate that these women have been able to work through the traumatic loss of their loved ones in part because for them their activist group has become a new privileged object, and they have been able to give a new meaning to group links beyond the family.” 286 - “Extreme political repression clarifies the impossibility of neutrality, whether in the political or in the professional domain: To put it in the language of the militant African-American movement, one is either part of the problem or part of the solution.” Questions: Why had there been little discussion of sociopolitical violence in psychoanalysis? This was one of the first readings where I read discussions about group collaboration  (the mothers of disappeared people) in addressing and processing trauma. What psychoanalytic work has been done in relation to group therapy? I am also fascinated by the psychological toll of disappearances and unanswered traumas (where information about a traumatic event is obscured or hidden). How did and does psychoanalysis approach disappearances?