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.