ABSTRACT
The theory of trauma, as it arose in Freudian psychoanalysis just before the turn of the twentieth century, is distinguished by its focus on an inherently temporal structure: the delay, within the experience of catastrophe, that defers its occurrence to the future. This chapter suggests that the notion of trauma, as it arises in S. Freud’s work and the tradition that follows it, is not, fundamentally, a problem of representation, but a question of address. The trauma is also the collapse of address inscribed as a possibility within every appeal as it crosses, not fully heard, just whispered, from mortal speaker to the one he or she would address, a mortal call to a mortal listening. The therapy, interestingly enough, will proceed to focus explicitly on an exercise involving the language of address, in an apparent attempt to allow Mario to tell his story.
