Psychoanalysis Collective Traumas And Memory Places

Psychoanalysis has always had to reckon with the epistemology of the witnessing of the analysand, but perhaps it has only recently been reckoning with the discourse of the ethics of testimony. “Here I am” is the answer addressed to those who call on us to testify. And who are the people who have answered with a “Here I am” in this book dedicated to the places of the memory of ‘Mediterranean civilisations and their discontents’? The reference to the work of the same name by Freud (1929) is clear here, but what many of the authors and of the essays in it seem to have in common is the attention to the traumatic nature of certain places of the memory: theatres of wars, such as the wars in the Balkans at the centre of the contribution by N. Janigro, lines in the diary of a father, who miraculously survived genocide, that a daughter-essayst (J. Altounian) wrenches from oblivion, or even non-places of a memory in which the witnesses-survivors are the many refugees who have fled their homelands. As Bohleber writes, psychoanalysis began as a theory of trauma. In this book, the places of the memory are often the rooms of analysis, places of re-evocation of collective traumas which have not always taken place historically along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In some cases, the victims of collective traumas, undergone in the home Mediterranean countries, take their dramas of migrants and refugees to analysts in the North of Europe (as in the case of Varvin and Papadopoulos). In other pieces, neither the geographical origin of the analysand nor that of the analyst have apparently any connection with the Mediterranean. We are referring to the essay by M. Ritter and that of Halberstadt-Freud: however, in them, the consulting rooms are places of the memory in which the analyst reflects on the subject of trans-generational transmission of collective guilt connected with Nazism and with the Shoah, which also affected the history of Mediterranean countries. In other contributions in this book, the places of the memory are those of the Middle East caught up in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From different points of view, three authors, Y. Gampel, J. Deutsch and H.-J. Wirth, speak to us of places of the memory where the collective traumas have not been assigned once and for all to the work of historians (as in the case of the Shoah and of the other genocides of the 20th century) as, unfortunately, they are still on-going.

A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Social Trauma presents a thorough introduction to social trauma from a range of perspectives, exploring several key themes, specific causes and symptoms and clinical interventions. With chapters from a diverse range of authors, the book considers social trauma as it relates to stories and history, group identity, the consulting room, migration, and post-traumatic conditions. These topics are explored via a range of frames, including individual therapy, group analysis, social dream matrix, large groups, case studies, narrative recollections, and cinematographic expression. The book also considers the implications of new technology in causing and treating social trauma. A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Social Trauma will be of great interest to psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training, psychoanalysts, and psychoanalytically informed professionals working with trauma.

The book combines for the first time attachment theory, regulation attachment therapy, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma, showing how the clinical therapeutic process of "going beyond trauma" may result in forgiveness of past relationships and other reparatory practices in which self and other, both internal and external, are integrated and reconnected, opening the subject to creativity and new meaning in life. From early relational trauma to abuse and neglect, to massive social trauma such as war and genocide, the most recent psychoanalytic theories on trauma highlight the relevance of attachment on one side and intergenerational transmission of trauma on the other. The appropriate psychoanalytic treatment of traumatisation of human origin therefore needs to address the specific relational issues, trying to repair precisely the connection between self and other, thanks to the clinician's active participation in the exchange.

This book brings together leading international psychoanalysts to discuss what psychoanalysis can offer to people who have experienced trauma, flight, and migration. The four parts of the book cover several elements of this work, including psychoanalytic projects beyond the couch, and collaboration with the UN. Each chapter presents an example of the applications of psychoanalysis with a specific group or in a particular context, from working with refugees in China to understanding the experiences of women who have witnessed political violence in Peru. Psychoanalytic work with Trauma, Flight and Migration provides a compelling exploration of the international contributions made by psychoanalysis. This innovative book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists looking to learn more about working with people who have experienced the impact of traumatic movement or migration.

The collection "Mediterranean Id-entities" is devoted to publish books in order to investigate the role of Mediterranean cultures from a psychoanalytic point of view, in front of the anthropological transformations concerning human societies and social institutions in the contemporary world. This book has the hard task to cover an interdisciplinary area in which psychoanalysis has to deal with fundamentalism as a social phenomenon and therefore with 'bordering' disciplines (such as religion history, transcultural studies, cultural anthropology) often with epistemologies that for origin and history appear to be incomparable to it. Lene Auestad intends to integrate the psychological analysis of the subject with its social embedding. She investigates the importance of the social unconscious and its effects on the prejudiced intentions of the individual apart from its own active interpretations. She highlights the importance the psychoanalytical approach provides in understanding the unspoken, unconscious contents of the social phenomena and how much the socially critical approach is able to enrich the analytical view which merely focuses on the subject regarding the effects of the social consensus. While Auestad's scrutiny aims at the social convention's role as an agent affecting the individual's deeds and thinking, Linden West's contribution draws on 'psycho-social' understandings, combining psychoanalysis and critical theory, as well as the work of John Dewey, to interrogate Islamic fundamentalist groups in a post-industrial city. It explores processes of self-recognition in groups and paranoid-schizoid modes of functioning, in which unwanted parts of self and of culture are split off and projected on to the other. The world is correspondingly divided into good and bad, pure and impure. John Dewey makes a crucial distinction between processes of democratic education and closed groups, which is what fundamentalist groups are, by reference to the quality of relationship to the other, and to experiential and narrative openness. However, it is also suggested that fundamentalism is ordinary, in that each of us can feel out of our depth, at times, and we may grab at ideas promising truth and nothing but the truth, which is ultimately illusion. Except not everyone reaches for a Kalashnikov, which is where individual biographies matter for subtler understanding of difference within commonalities. Fundamentalism has increasingly become a part of the political discourse in Western countries and is to a large degree associated with Islamic Jihadism. Fundamentalism has, however, been a concern in all religions, and Werner Bohleber in this book discusses its connections with violence in monotheistic religions. Fundamentalism is also a concern in professional organisations and in this book Sverre Varvin discusses the relation between fundaments for a science and fundamentalism in psychoanalysis. This is related to general trends of fundamentalism in religious and political contexts. A central question is how adherence to fundamentals, understood at basic principles for a profession or a religious-political movement, may develop into fundamentalism and how this may develop into more violent forms. Psychoanalytic understanding of mass psychology and unconscious processes at group levels are developed in this book by each of the outstanding authors in order to understand present Islamic and other forms of fundamentalist movements in the European context.

This book has the hard task to cover an interdisciplinary area in which psychoanalysis has to deal with infant research. The development of infant research methodologies is illustrated in the present book by the contribution written by Beatrice Beebe, whose

People seeking asylum face unique challenges and frequently experience mental health problems. Effective support requires an understanding of their mental health needs in the broader context of their lives, cultures and extreme experiences. This book provides practical guidance for professionals and services working with people seeking asylum in mental health, social care, legal, government. managerial and commissioning roles. With authors from a wide range of professional backgrounds, the book is enriched by accounts from people with first hand experience of the asylum system itself. It considers the challenges and dilemmas faced by all involved, including clients, clinicians and service planners, with a wealth of practical information about how to assess and understand strengths and needs, avoid inappropriate conclusions and discrimination, consider treatment options, and write records and reports. The authors emphasise that effective support depends on reflection, humanity and compassion. The book is a must-have resource for professionals working with those who have to seek asylum.

Trauma is one of the most important topics discussed throughout the clinical, social and cultural field. Social traumatization, as we meet it in the aftermath of genocide, war and persecution, is targeted at whole groups and thus affects the individual's immediate holding environment, cutting it off from an important resilience factor; further on, social trauma is implemented in a societal context, thus involving the surrounding society in the traumatic process. Both conditions entail major consequences for the impact and prognosis of the resulting individual posttraumatic disorders as well as for the social and cultural consequences. The volume connects clinical and epidemiological studies on the sequelae of social trauma to reflections from social psychology and the humanities. Post-war and post-dictatorial societies are in particular marked by the effects of massive, large group traumatization, and if these are not acknowledged, explored, and mourned, the unprocessed cumulative trauma that has become deeply embedded in the collective memory leads to periodical reactivations. To address social trauma, an interdisciplinary approach is required.