Originally published in French as: L'empire du traumatisme.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

A dual genealogy. The significance of a controversy. The birth of tr auma. Labor laws -- The long hunt. Cowardice or death. The brutalizatio n of therapy. After the war. A French history -- The intimate confessio n. War psychoanalysis. A profitable sickness. Victims of the self. The issue of survival -- An end to suspicion. Women and children first. The consecration of the event. The last witnesses. The humanity of crimina ls -- Psychiatric victimology. Victims' rights. The resistance of psych iatry. An ambiguous origin. A relative autonomy -- Toulouse. The summon s to trauma. Emergency care in question. Inequalities and exclusions. C onsolation and compensation -- Humanitarian psychiatry. One origin, two accounts. In the beginning was humanitarianism. On the margins of war. The frontiers of humanity -- Palestine. The need to testify. The chron icles of suffering. Equivalence of victims. Histories without a history -- The psychotraumatology of exile. The immigrant, between native and foreigner. The clinical practice of asylum. A change of paradigm. The e vidence of the body -- Asylum. The illegitimate refugee. Recognizing th e sign. The truth of writing. The meaning of words. Conclusion : the mo ral economy of trauma.

Translated from the French.