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It was my profound privilege to present my paper and have the responses of three of my fellow faculty to my ideas about moving away from thinking of the person who has endured suffering having a collapsed, damaged or dissociated self as a consequence of trauma and adopting the militantly simple perspective of the person in pain. I especially appreciate and commiserate with their effort because not only do I invoke the paradox inherent in work with people who have suffered, but my squeamishness about the current popularity of trauma studies (and I would only use this word in this context) the colonization of suffering leads me to be provocative.
The NYU Post Doctoral Program is comprised of four tracks or orientations (Freudian, Interpersonal, Relational and Independent) and each of us belongs to a different one—Nina Thomas to the Relational, Isaac Tylim to the Freudian and Judith Alpert to the Independent Track. Our ideas mesh and diverge in ways that might not be predictable on the basis of our stated theoretical stance. For example, where I thought Drs. Alpert and Thomas might find themselves closer to my position, I find myself stimulated and enlarged by their critiques and where I might have thought Dr. Tylim's position arising out of the Freudian tradition to be most in opposition to my own which has its roots in the Culturalist and Interpersonal perspective, I find myself gratified to be uniquely understood by him. While the four of us do have divergent views, what we share is an appreciation for each others views, and a scrupulous skepticism about our own: that is to say we approach our subject in the only possible way, with a reverent humility.
Judith Alpert addresses my work with Elsa, a Holocaust survivor, that I describe to illustrate my views, and imagines how she, in my shoes might