ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Hollander offers a psychoanalytic reading of Argentina–s brutal military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983. This terror state had a huge impact on its citizens. Psychoanalysts were among the most articulate critics of the dictatorial regime, which made them, and other mental health professionals, targets of the military. As one admiral put it once: “Argentina has three main enemies: Karl Marx because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of society; Sigmund Freud, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of the family; and Albert Einstein, because he tried to destroy the Christian concept of time and space” (Timmerman, p. 130). Within this general environment of intimidation, the majority of psychoanalysts, like the citizenry in general, withdrew into an isolated social and professional life. They supported the leadership of their psychoanalytic associations when they refused to take a publicly critical position against the extreme human rights violations of the state, justifying their stance on the grounds of "professional neutrality." Hollander asks whether there can be any clinical neutrality in a state of terror and whether psychoanalysis can be exerted in the absence of freedom, contending that free association and freedom of thought are basic human needs.
