[The elderly subject and social violence: the body as a factor in communication]

The social inferiority of an elderly person stems from his physical inferiority--actual or alleged but always possible. And yet this "inferior" body is paradoxically hypertrophic: at first it masks the person, then takes up its space until it negates it. Hence, an elderly person is not only a body but a lonely body. In his relations with other people, his body becomes a receiver, a receptacle and a source of communication. Social violence underlies relations with elderly people: such violence may be deceptive, widespread and continuous or, on the other hand, manifest, episodic and conspicuous. In the first case it may be a way of assigning subalternate roles to them in relation to the efficiency expected of them or a way of mythologizing their condition as one of pseudo-happiness. In the second case is generally relates to assaults, thefts, bag-snatching, etc. In any case, however, communication with them entails violence: their body perceives this and reacts to it. This is why their body's language is violent: their body cries out, it is stunned and it is acted upon (even--and unavoidably--in relations with a therapist).