When does repression become political? The use of the language of trauma in the context of violence and anxiety

Tavares Furtado, Henrique

Abstract

In the history of psychoanalytical thought, anxiety is described as a form of fear that lacks an object of reference. Anxious individuals live in a condition of free-floating danger, always acting as though their actions could trigger apocalyptic scenarios, but never capable of describing the source of their affliction. Anxiety is fear that cannot be pinned downed, an all-pervasive and all-encompassing fear that has removed itself so far away from any specific object (see introduction) to the point of becoming unfathomable. As a general condition of indiscriminate fear, anxiety leaves people breathing heavily and experiencing palpitations without any apparent danger, paralyses them by the sight of different patterns on the pavement, makes them afraid of walking into shops. In the post-11 September World, where individuals are supposed “to say something if they see something” this condition of free-floating fear has been turned on its head, challenged against the signs of anxiety themselves: we start to breath heavily and experience palpitations by the sight of others breathing heavily and experiencing palpitations, although no objective event or reason has trigger this “hysterical” cycle. For

• Publication Date: Apr 30, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 37-58
• Book Title: Politics of Anxiety
• Keywords: Violence, Trauma, Representation, Freud, Derrida, Trauma
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/888731