The Bad Après-Coup

An American living in France sought a consultation in connection with anxiety attacks and minor sexual disturbances. During the preliminary interviews, the analyst learnt that, although he had no accent, he was Czech and Jewish, and that he had survived internment in a concentration camp. He was 15 years old when the camp was liberated by American troops, for whom he became the mascot. On becoming an adult, he had acquired American nationality and joined the army. Then he got married to a German woman who was sometimes anti-Semitic and was unaware that her husband was Jewish. The couple engaged in sado-masochistic relations in which the man had the position of the victim and found it particularly exciting to be called Jewish.

The analysis took place on a three-times weekly basis and seemed to progress normally. After about five months, he started having a lot of nightmares in which he relived his experience of the camps. The patient told the analyst that he suffered from a fish allergy that resulted in a swelling of his lips. In one of his nightmares that was particularly intolerable, he was attacked by a giant fish and had woken up with swollen lips. The analyst saw the connection with the allergy and asked him what came to his mind when he thought about the signifier “fish”. This suggestion triggered a series of extremely violent associations during which the memory of the following episode emerged.

The scene took place in Czechoslovakia on the eve of a Jewish festival. In the bathroom, the carp that was to be used for the festival meal was swimming in the bathwater. Then, the Nazis burst into the family apartment. The patient fled into the living room, but could hear his mother screaming. The soldiers had just killed his father with their bayonets. The room was full of blood. They beat his mother and the patient was taken away. He would never see her or his sister again.

At the end of the session, he began screaming and hitting the walls with his fists. The analyst