Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how the consequences of social brutality continue to operate latently in the deepest layers of survivors' minds, as well as in the emotional atmosphere surrounding them, where they take the form of, in effect, a conspiracy of silence and denial. It attempts to capture the phenomenology of extreme traumatization and tried to identify and highlight its core elements, or 'markers'. The book also introduces the frame and substance of the trauma discourse—where it is positioned in the history and theoretical evolution of psychiatry and of psychoanalysis, and what phenomenology it addresses. It contains reflections on the process of giving video testimony and the methodology of its evaluation; represented are the perspectives of a media scholar, a historian, and a psychoanalyst. The book describes the evolution and implementation of the Israel Project and its historical contextualization.