attained is tangled within the distortion of the traumatic event within the physical witness’s social. The ‘collapse of witnessing’ can be seen again as a person tries to be a witness of distortion rather then of the Truth. The Truth is more difficult to be a witness of because it is not what a person necessarily wants to believe, but it is what actually was and is.In The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, St. Teresa devoted herself to God from the age of 21 years forward. She was separated from her family and forced to live a life that incorporated many unexplainable ‘favours’ from God. These ‘favours’ were often considered traumatic because of their long-term effects and because they almost always could not be incorporated into the realm of understanding of everyday life. These ‘favours’ were delivered in ways that can be described as excessive jouissance. Jouissance is excessive pleasure, however according to Freud’s pleasure principle, excessive pleasure would be an effect of unpleasure and excessive unpleasure can be traumatic. A person needs to have a certain amount of pleasure in order to function. The pleasure principle is what imposes reality and unpleasures upon a person’s thoughts and actions. If there is excessive unpleasure and the pleasure principle does not function to counteract this excess it can be traumatic for the person. The excessive jouissance was physically seen in uncontrollable orgasms, which Teresa was unable to control. Teresa believed at first that the orgasms were sent to her by the devil, as she says, “the devil plunged me into a spiritual battle once more” (Teresa 267). However, she realized and “resolved to suffer most willingly all the Lord might be pleased to send [her]” for “he showed [her] ways of making sure that these visions were not of the devil” (Teresa 265, 207). These mul...
