Repetition and Trauma

Sylvia Altenbacher

“Die Angst ist also einerseits Erwartung des Traumas, anderseits eine gemilderte Wiederholung desselben.“1

“Anxiety is therefore on the one hand an expectation of a trauma, and on the other a repetition of it in a mitigated form“ 2

"Is there trauma through repetition or repetition through trauma?"- Tracing repetition in relation to trauma, in order to come closer to answering my question, necessitated the reading of various texts of Freud which led me to anxiety as a starting point for my reflections.

In Lecture XXXII I find a trace, here Freud writes of a twofold origin of anxiety, one that occurs as a result of an old traumatic moment itself and a second, a signal of a threatening repetition which can adapt itself to a new situation. In the quotation above he speaks of the fact that there is also an anxiety that is already a mitigated repetition of a traumatic experience3.

I detect 3 forms of anxiety here, 1) a real anxiety that builds up around the trauma itself, 2) an anxiety OF repetition and 3) an anxiety AS (mitigated) repetition.

Again, in Moses and Monotheism, I find the effects of trauma described, on the one hand, as positive, with the aim of recalling the forgotten experience and, in the best case, experiencing a repetition through it. On the other hand, as negative, where, on the contrary, nothing shall be remembered and nothing shall be repeated4.

Here, I see a connection, the anxiety of repetition or anxiety as repetition proceeds from the trauma. Here the anxiety thus has the function of repetitively remembering or repetitively forgetting - repetitively (not) inscribing itself. Thus, at least at first glance, repetition seems to emerge through the trauma.

However, based on Lacan's elaboration in Seminar XI, where, in addition to the repetition of signifiers, the repetition of the known (Automaton), he describes the new, the unknown - the Tyche - which is a missed encounter, the question "trauma through repetition or repetition through trauma" still remains open for me, but I would rephrase it as "trauma through repetition AND repetition through trauma?". Repetition is not the return of signs, it has something accidental about it, something that cannot be formulated, it is (not only) the repetition of traumatic experiences or the repeated avoidance of those experiences5. Perhaps one can say that at certain points trauma also arises through repetition(s).

References

1 Freud S., GW Bd. XIV, Hemmung, Symptom und Angst, S. 199.

2 Freud S. The Standard Edition, Volume XX, Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety, p. 166.

3 Freud S., (1927) Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety. Stamford, Conn.: Psychoanalytic Institute. Pp. vi + 103. (Tr. supervised L. Pierce Clark; Pref. S. Ferenczi.), p. 165.

4 Freud S., (1939) Moses and Monotheism. London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Pp. 223. New York: Knopf. Pp. viii + 218. (Tr. Katherine Jones.), p. 74.

5 Lacan, J. (1981). Book XI. The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.