The analyst as a witness

Abstract

The aim of this article is to think of the place of the witness as a third place that the analyst, in the clinic of trauma, is able to sustain. According to Ferenczi, in traumatic dreams a third is already being summoned. It is not the witness of the realm of Law, nor the place of the father or the symbolic Law. This is a third space that can be called potential, interstitial space, indeterminate and formless, where something that at first would be incommunicable circulates - and gradually takes shape. This space allows and supports the literalness of a testimonial narrative, its hesitations, paradoxes and silences. More than a trauma theory, the notion of a potential space would be the great contribution of psychoanalysis to the theoretical and clinical research with survivors of death camps, situations of torture and violence.