Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami are considered traumatic events having the high potential to lead
survivors to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the first part, the rise and historical construction of
PTSD psychiatric category is considered. PTSD medicalize expectable human reactions by failing to discriminate
between genuine symptoms of disorder and normal distress reactions, and between violence deliberately
inflicted and exposition to natural disasters. A brief history of the concept of trauma is presented in part two,
resuming literature available: why the language of trauma permeates everyday discourse and why the language
of posttraumatic stress is becoming the Esperanto of global suffering? What are the moral and theoretical consequences
at stake? Part three is a brief overview of the new anthropology of humanitarian intervention in the
now permanent state of emergency and about changes in witnessing social suffering.
