Badiou's theory of the event and the politics of trauma recovery
- Author
- Gregory Bistoen (UGent) , Stijn Vanheule (UGent) and Stef Craps (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- There exists a conceptual parallel between psychological accounts of psychic trauma on the one hand, and French philosopher Alain Badiou’s notion of the event on the other: both are defined by a relation of incommensurability or excessiveness with regard to the pre-existent context or system. Further development of this parallel, i.e., viewing trauma as an event in the Badiouian sense, enables us to pinpoint and clarify a logical fallacy at work in psychological theories of post-traumatic growth. By thinking trauma recovery as a process of accommodating the pre-existent mental schemata to the “new trauma-related information”, these theories risk taking as a given that which must first be constituted by the subject: the “content” (i.e., “information”) of the trauma. By emphasizing the necessity of the activity of the subject for the development of a new context that allows the event to be “read”, Badiou’s theory of the subject offers a way around the aforementioned logical fallacy. In so doing, it re-introduces the essential yet generally neglected political dimension of trauma recovery. This is illustrated through the example of the speak-outs of the 1970s women’s liberation movement.
- Keywords
- trauma recovery, politics. POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER, subjectivization, act, Lacan, psychoanalysis, event, psychological trauma, Badiou, ADVERSITY, MEMORY
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-5760499
- MLA
- Bistoen, Gregory, et al. “Badiou’s Theory of the Event and the Politics of Trauma Recovery.” THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY, edited by Kareen Malone, vol. 24, no. 6, 2014, pp. 830–51, doi:10.1177/0959354314548616.
- APA
- Bistoen, G., Vanheule, S., & Craps, S. (2014). Badiou’s theory of the event and the politics of trauma recovery. THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY, 24(6), 830–851. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354314548616
- Chicago author-date
- Bistoen, Gregory, Stijn Vanheule, and Stef Craps. 2014. “Badiou’s Theory of the Event and the Politics of Trauma Recovery.” Edited by Kareen Malone. THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 24 (6): 830–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354314548616.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Bistoen, Gregory, Stijn Vanheule, and Stef Craps. 2014. “Badiou’s Theory of the Event and the Politics of Trauma Recovery.” Ed by. Kareen Malone. THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 24 (6): 830–851. doi:10.1177/0959354314548616.
- Vancouver
- 1.Bistoen G, Vanheule S, Craps S. Badiou’s theory of the event and the politics of trauma recovery. Malone K, editor. THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY. 2014;24(6):830–51.
- IEEE
- [1]G. Bistoen, S. Vanheule, and S. Craps, “Badiou’s theory of the event and the politics of trauma recovery,” THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 24, no. 6, pp. 830–851, 2014.
@article{5760499,
abstract = {{There exists a conceptual parallel between psychological accounts of psychic trauma on the one hand, and French philosopher Alain Badiou’s notion of the event on the other: both are defined by a relation of incommensurability or excessiveness with regard to the pre-existent context or system. Further development of this parallel, i.e., viewing trauma as an event in the Badiouian sense, enables us to pinpoint and clarify a logical fallacy at work in psychological theories of post-traumatic growth. By thinking trauma recovery as a process of accommodating the pre-existent mental schemata to the “new trauma-related information”, these theories risk taking as a given that which must first be constituted by the subject: the “content” (i.e., “information”) of the trauma. By emphasizing the necessity of the activity of the subject for the development of a new context that allows the event to be “read”, Badiou’s theory of the subject offers a way around the aforementioned logical fallacy. In so doing, it re-introduces the essential yet generally neglected political dimension of trauma recovery. This is illustrated through the example of the speak-outs of the 1970s women’s liberation movement.}},
author = {{Bistoen, Gregory and Vanheule, Stijn and Craps, Stef}},
editor = {{Malone, Kareen}},
issn = {{0959-3543}},
journal = {{THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY}},
keywords = {{trauma recovery,politics. POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER,subjectivization,act,Lacan,psychoanalysis,event,psychological trauma,Badiou,ADVERSITY,MEMORY}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{6}},
pages = {{830--851}},
title = {{Badiou's theory of the event and the politics of trauma recovery}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354314548616}},
volume = {{24}},
year = {{2014}},
}
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