‘To return, to eat, to tell the story ’: Primo Levi's lessons on living and dying in the aftermath of trauma

Abstract

This article invites Primo Levi, the internationally esteemed citizen of Turin, Italy and survivor of the Auschwitz to instruct post 9/11 psychoanalysis in five lessons on living and dying in the aftermath of severe trauma. Relying on excerpts from Levi's writings, the author invites Levi to speak to the reader words of warning concerning contemporary psychoanalysis' benign omnipotence in embracing overly simplistic theories of cure, resiliency and psychic repatriation of the human spirit in the aftermath of severe trauma.

Keywords:

• Primo Levi
• trauma
• resiliency

Notes

In 1983 Levi says of Bettelheim, “I dislike him. I dislike his presumptuousness, his belief that he can explain it all, his psychoanalytical armour which is like a gospel that brings light to all, without ever a chink of doubt.” The interviewer then challenges Levi's view of Bettelheim, attempting to explain, “His isn't a rough, brutal schematic critique of the victims, it's a series of notes on a number of psychological mechanisms and their consequences …” Bristling, Levi responds by saying that Bettelheim seems to want to look you in the eye and say, “Now I'll explain how things really worked” (12:237–238).

Ferenczi wrote, “Should it even occur, as it does occasionally to me, that experiencing another's and my own suffering brings a tear to my eye, (and one should not conceal this emotion from the patient), then the tears of doctor and patient mingle in a sublimated communion, which perhaps finds its analogy only in the mother child relationship. And this is the healing agent …”