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If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?
One might wonder what a book about war, militarism, the politics of the American Psychological Association, truth commissions in South Africa, and terror states in Latin America has to do with relational psychoanalysis. Yet, when one delves into the eighteen chapters of First Do No Harm, each written by a different analytic writer, the answer, “everything,” unfolds in a resounding chorus. Adrienne Harris and Steven Botticelli, the editors of this volume, have compiled a treatise on the nature and function of interconnectedness, mutual recognition, and multiplicity for subjectivity and our ability to relate to others. It is a compilation of how what are essentials to a full human life are attacked, destroyed, and rendered meaningless by acts of war and the discourses that surround it. In this volume, the authors remind us that time does not stand still in the face of trauma, and understanding, recovery, and memory cannot be disembedded from the cultures in which they take place.
I shall begin with the title, First Do No Harm, as it is the editors' aim to situate this volume of essays in paradox. Where is the “first” in this Hippocratic Oath? Tom McGoldrick's work with soldiers returning to war Iraq and Afghanistan is the first chapter of the book. His clinical vignettes exemplify what we already know when sufferers of trauma enter our offices. Just our being there is a reminder of their wounds. Our attempts to provide them with some new relational experiences heightens their attention to that which they never received enough of. Every entrance into our room is an act of heroism. Tom safely sits in his office patching up, or not patching up, these soldiers so that they can return, or not return, to war. What is the first thing he should do? And even more paradoxically, which is more harmful-helping them to return to war or helping them not