Eilis O'Hanlon: 'The future may look bright, but we haven't forgotten the past'

The deep wounds caused by the economic crash may have healed on the surface, but the psychological scars still linger, writes Eilis O'Hanlon

'If crashes can’t be predicted, one could happen at any moment'. Stock photo

Eilis O'Hanlon

The term "trauma" comes from the Greek word for wound. "In adopting the term," say the authors of the classic text, The Language Of Psychology, "psychoanalysis carries the three ideas implicit in it over on to the psychical level: the idea of a violent shock, the idea of a wound, and the idea of consequences affecting the whole organisation". The financial crash of 2008, and all that followed, shows how this can also happen on a social and economic level.

What made it more traumatic was what preceded the crash. There had been recessions before. There will be recessions again. If there is a solution to the cycle of boom and bust, no one has found it yet. What made this one different is that it followed an unprecedented period of self-confidence in Irish life. The Celtic Tiger was not simply an economic phenomenon, but a psychological one. Irish people felt, perhaps for the first time, that they were deserving of the best life.