‘The Absence of Presence': Theorizing Unconsciousness Through the Phenomenology of Complex Trauma.

Abstract

The lived experience of complex trauma survivors influences ontology by offering the opportunity to theorize paradoxes within the formation of consciousness. Using Emmanuel Levinas' Existence and Existents, I develop an argument about how diagnostic criteria are an attempt to name the shape of complex trauma but they fail because of their fundamental ontological premises. This is because diagnosis works in the space of consciousness and assumes a certain type of temporal subject, which fails to recognize complex trauma survivors. Similarly, in philosophical literature about trauma, there is also an attempt to use dualisms or neat dialectics to theorize trauma. The fundamental nature of complex trauma, however, is that it resists resolution. Building upon Levinas' critique of Heidegger, I present an argument about how complex trauma survivors can open up a theoretical space to think about unconsciousness, and the liminal or not-yet subject.