Malaise in civilization and totalitarian disaster. The author cross-examines the relationship between psychoanalysis and totalitarian disaster. Does psychoanalysis, psychoanalysts, have something relevant to say about the barbarism? Isn't this a dimension which is beyond our field? Can we say that the disaster that befell the culture would not have had but little or no consequence on our "theory", our "practice" our "art"? Isn't it amazing that we follow the psychoanalytic task as if the wave of eruption of terror and barbarism in culture had not shaken the four walls of our offices? These are questions which this article is facing, and leading the author to get back on the issue of borderline states since his reflection on the lasting psychological effects of totalitarianism.
Malaise in civilization; death (our attitude towards death); mass psychology; totalitarianism