Bearing witness: psychoanalytic work with people traumatised by torture and state violence

This is a remarkable and moving book, made all the more significant because it was compiled by the contributors and editors over ten years ago, well before the vast scale of the need to offer psychotherapeutic help to refugees and asylum seekers was in any way anticipated. This book is an early example of the variety of thinking that was emerging in different parts of the world at that time and grew out of the exchange of ideas discussed in an EFPP workshop on the subject. In this respect, it is a pioneering book. Bearing witness was originally published in 2010, but was recalled by the publishers because of many proofreading and referencing errors, and was eventually reprinted with corrections in 2012. This unfortunate start in the book’s life may well have led to its important contribution being overlooked, and in the context of this special edition of the Journal, I am pleased to be able draw it to readers’ attention anew. As I was one of the EFPP Book Series editors at the time that Gautier and Sabatini Scalmati were compiling the book, and therefore partly involved in its germination and development, this review is perhaps more of a recommendation than a critical appraisal.

Bearing Witness emerged from the workshop on psychoanalytic psychotherapy with victims of torture and state violence run by the EFPP during the early years of the twenty-first century. The contributors to the workshop were international, and the authors of this collection of papers, all steeped in therapeutic work with victims of torture and state violence, come from Denmark, UK, Israel, France, Chile, South Africa, Switzerland, Bolivia and Italy. Their patients were children, teenagers and adults, and each contributor has had to make special adaptations to psychoanalytic technique and the therapeutic setting in order to be able to help these terribly traumatised people. These adaptations are carefully and thoughtfully discussed throughout the book.

The psychoanalytic work of trying to facilit