ABSTRACT
Hollander introduces readers to the themes of her book through a brief autobiographical narrative depicting how as a Latin American historian and a psychoanalyst she became a witness/observer to Latin America’s state terrorist regimes and the post–9/11 U.S. political drift toward authoritarianism. She presents the book’s social psychoanalytic analysis of the terrors of our era and the challenges involved in living with optimism and hope. Her participation with other politically progressive psychoanalysts in struggles on behalf of human rights and democratic governance in both North and South America offer a rare opportunity to learn about a psychoanalysis beyond the couch. The book often reads like a political thriller because, as Hollander explains, she contextualizes her analysis of the systemic roots of political repression and the psychology of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders through the firsthand accounts of psychoanalysts on both sides of the border who describe the destabilizing impact of extreme social situations and share their psychoanalytic perspectives on the personal significance of socially induced trauma.
