Table Of ContentBearing Witness to the Witness
Bearing Witness to the Witness examines different modes of traumatic
testimony and the ways in which these modes can enrich or undermine the
ability of the subject to bear witness. Years of listening to both direct and
indirect testimonies on trauma has led Dana Amir to identify four modes
of witnessing trauma: the “metaphoric mode”, the “metonymic mode”, the
“excessive mode” and the “Muselmann mode”.
To follow these four modes of interaction with the traumatic memory,
the various chapters of the book present a close reading of three genres of
traumatic witnessing: literary accounts by Holocaust survivors, memoirs
(located between autobiographic recollection and fiction) and “raw” tes-
timonies taken from Holocaust survivors. Since every traumatic testimo-
nial narrative contains a combination of all four modes with various shifts
between them, it is of crucial importance to identify the singular combina-
tion of modes that characterizes each traumatic narrative, focusing on the
specific areas within which a shift occurs from one mode to another. Such
a focus is extremely important, as illustrated and analyzed throughout this
book, to the rehabilitation of the psychic metabolic system which condi-
tions the digestion of traumatic materials, allowing a metaphoric working
through of traumatic zones that were so far only accessible to repetition
and evacuation.
Bearing Witness to the Witness will appeal to trauma researchers of all
research areas, including psychologists, psychoanalysts, literary scholars,
as well as philosophers of language and philosophers of the mind. The book
will also be of interest and relevance to clinical psychologists, psychoana-
lytic candidates and graduate students in literary theory and criticism.
Dana Amir is Faculty member at Haifa University, a clinical psycholo-
gist, training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Israel Psychoanalytic
Society, poetess and literature researcher. She is the author of six poetry
books and two psychoanalytic books, and the winner of many national
as well as four distinguished international prizes. Her papers have been
published in many journals and presented in professional conferences all
over the world.
‘Taking Dana Amir’s approach as a model, a new line of inquiry, that of
reconstructing the mental processes that led to the phenomena observed
in the testimonies, will become evident, leading to a much deeper under-
standing of the experience of survival and of its aftermath. Her book is
written in a prose that is almost poetry and in a language that is both strong
as well as daring and imaginative.’
Professor Dori Laub, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,
Yale University School of Medicine, USA
When music is played in a new key, the melody does not change, but the notes
that make up the composition do: change in the context of continuity, a continuity
that perseveres through change. Psychoanalysis in a New Key publishes books
that share the aims psychoanalysts have always had, but that approach them dif-
ferently. The books in the series are not expected to advance any particular theo-
retical agenda, although to this date most have been written by analysts from the
Interpersonal and Relational orientations.
The most important contribution of a psychoanalytic book is the communica-
tion of something that nudges the reader’s grasp of clinical theory and practice
in an unexpected direction. Psychoanalysis in a New Key creates a deliberate
focus on innovative and unsettling clinical thinking. Because that kind of thinking
is encouraged by exploration of the sometimes surprising contributions to psy-
choanalysis of ideas and findings from other fields, Psychoanalysis in a New Key
particularly encourages interdisciplinary studies. Books in the series have married
psychoanalysis with dissociation, trauma theory, sociology and criminology. The
series is open to the consideration of studies examining the relationship between
psychoanalysis and any other field – for instance, biology, literary and art criti-
cism, philosophy, systems theory, anthropology and political theory.
But innovation also takes place within the boundaries of psychoanalysis, and
Psychoanalysis in a New Key therefore also presents work that reformulates
thought and practice without leaving the precincts of the field. Books in the series
focus, for example, on the significance of personal values in psychoanalytic prac-
tice, on the complex interrelationship between the analyst’s clinical work and
personal life, on the consequences for the clinical situation when patient and ana-
lyst are from different cultures, and on the need for psychoanalysts to accept the
degree to which they knowingly satisfy their own wishes during treatment hours,
often to the patient’s detriment. A full list of all titles in this series is available
at: https://www.routledge.com/series/LEAPNKBS
TITLES IN THIS SERIES INCLUDE:
Vol. 47 Bearing Witness to the Witness
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Four Modes of Traumatic Testimony
Dana Amir
Vol. 46 Travels with the Self
Interpreting Psychology as Cultural History
Philip Cushman
Bearing Witness to the Witness
A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Four
Modes of Traumatic Testimony
Dana Amir
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Dana Amir
The right of Dana Amir to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Amir, Dana, author.
Title: Bearing witness to the witness: a psychoanalytic perspective on
four modes of traumatic testimony/Dana Amir.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2019. |
Series: Psychoanalysis in a new key book series; 47 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018025202 (print) | LCCN 2018037264 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315146508 (Master) | ISBN 9781351379489 (Web PDF) |
ISBN 9781351379472 (ePub) | ISBN 9781351379465 (Mobipocket/
Kindle) | ISBN 9781138505292 (hardback: alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781138505308 (pbk.: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315146508 (ebk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychic trauma–Treatment. | Holocaust
survivors–Psychology.
Classification: LCC RC552.T7 (ebook) | LCC RC552.T7 A46 2019
(print) | DDC 616.85/210651–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025202
ISBN: 978-1-138-50529-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-50530-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-14650-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To my family, lost and found
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Foreword by Dori Laub xiii
Introduction 1
1 When language meets the traumatic lacuna:
Four modes of traumatic testimony 6
2 Autobiographical fiction or fictional autobiography?
Georges Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood 22
3 The post-traumatic dyad: Agota Kristó f ’s The Notebook 37
4 The center mode as opposed to the marginal mode: Yehiel Dinur
(Ka-Tzetnik)’s House of Dolls 49
5 The traumatic lacuna as the negative possession of the other:
Aharon Appelfeld’s “Bertha” 59
6 Transcending the traumatic real: Six variations
in six stories by Ida Fink 70
7 From the collapse of signifiers to the reconstruction of language:
Robert Antelme’s The Human Race 86
8 The lacuna: Reading children’s testimonies 112
