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As a result of the recollection of a consultation -framed in our recent history- about a severely disturbed child, the influence of social context on the psychological apparatus and on the psychoanalytic setting is considered. The consultation had two very different moments. It is in the second moment hat a perturbing recognition takes place in the mind of the analyst and that which is traumatic irrupts in the consulting room. It is revealed that it is the case of an adopted child, and a series of disquieting questions arise regarding her identity since her adoption had taken place during the time when the offspring of the disappeared were snatched away from their families of origin and their identities forged. A series of interrogations emerge regarding the mechanisms which obstructed the possibility to differentiate the biological son from the adoptive one at the initial moment of consultation. Explanatory elements cannot be reduced to singular intrapsychical factors nor can they be reduced to sociocultural causes. The influence of social discourse on subjectivity is evaluated and a number of questions are outlined as to the effects of the dictatorial regime in the analyst's perception apparatus and his assessment of reality. It is remembered that among the psychological campaigns carried out during the military dictatorship, the government had established a propaganda campaign with posters that coined the slogan "Silence is Health". The child would not speak, the parents had silenced her adoption and, the analyst and everyone involved in the consultation were afflicted with a puzzling deafness. The recalled experience accounts for a psychism that subdued to a state of threat and to the imposture of the Law, pays tribute to a traumatic repercussion. In this case, the weakening of the facility of speech as its corollary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the possible meanings of the concept "mind of the terrorist" taken from the study published in the Newsletter, Volume 11, 1, 2002. Certain questions arose over which theoretical concepts had been used by the authors to frame their ideas. It was seen that the denomination "mind of the terrorist" besides corresponding to a psychoanalytical frame of reference, expresses an ideology and a political stance, as occurs implicitly in the majority of psychoanalytical papers. This does not exclude the fact that to produce the figure of a terrorist one should take into consideration variables such as: childhood traumatic experiences, early abandonments, and violent identification figures. However these ideas do not explain the terrorist phenomenon in all its complexity. There is concern over the risk of boxing in the figure of the terrorist within a psychopathological category. The relation subject-social world is not something uniform and has its own conflicts, especially with the alienness of the other social worlds that are terror provoking. Events such as those of September 11 and those in London in 2005, challenge us on how to think them from the standpoint of the Psychoanalytic Theory and the obstacles the established psychoanalytic mind finds in its path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objetivo. Estudiar el perfil clínico de una muestra de pacientes con crisis no epilépticas conversivas, y la influencia que las experiencias traumáticas pueden tener en la psicopatología y la personalidad de estos pacientes. Métodos. Se incluyeron 17 pacientes con crisis no epilépticas conversivas, confirmadas mediante videoelectroencefalograma. Se administró una entrevista clínica estructurada para la detección de trastornos psiquiátricos en eje I y II (SCID-DSM-III-R), un cuestionario de personalidad (MMPI), y una entrevista diseñada para recoger historia personal de experiencias traumáticas en la infancia. Se ha usado para el análisis de los resultados pruebas estadísticas descriptivas y comparativas. Resultados. Más del 70% de la muestra cumplía criterios para dos o más diagnósticos psiquiátricos en eje I, y para al menos un trastorno de la personalidad. El subgrupo con experiencias traumáticas en la infancia presentaba un mayor número de escalas del MMPI en el rango de la patología clínica, una menor edad a la cual eran diagnosticados correctamente, y una mayor intensidad en las escalas de psicastenia y desviación psicopática que el subgrupo sin experiencias traumáticas en la infancia. Conclusiones. Nuestra muestra de pacientes con crisis no epilépticas conversivas presenta unos niveles de psicopatología elevados, y diversidad en su sustrato de carácter. Se pueden definir, en función de los antecedentes de experiencias traumáticas en la infancia, subgrupos con diferente gravedad y distintas características clínicas y de personalidad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]