East European Psychoanalytical Institute St. Petersburg, Russia . March 2014

1. East European Psychoanalytical Institute St. Petersburg, Russia. March 2014 VAMIKVOLKAN’s PSYCHOPOLITICAL SEMINAR: Large-Group Identity, MassiveTrauma, Transgenerational Transmission and Chosen Trauma VAMIK D. VOLKAN, M.D., DLFAPA, FACPsaProfessor Emeritus of Psychiatry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. Training and Supervising Analyst Emeritus, Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Washington, DC. Honorary Doctorate degrees from: Kuopio University, Finland (now called University of Eastern Finland); Ankara University, Turkey; and Eastern Psychoanalytical University, St. Petersburg, Russia.

2. OUTLINE PART 1: MY PSYCHOPOLITICAL JOURNEY THROUGH WAR AND PEACE PART 2: LARGE-GROUP IDENTITY PART 3: TRAUMA AT THE HAND OF THE “OTHER” PART 4: TRANSGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSIONS PART 5: A CASE STUDY ILLUSTRATING LARGE-GROUP PSYCHOLOGY

3. PART 1: MY PSYCHOPOLITICAL JOURNEY THROUGH WAR AND PEACE

4. November 20, 1977

5. With Elias Freij, the Mayor of Bethlehem- 1983

7. With Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev

8. With Arnold Rüütel, the President of Estonia

9. With the former US President JIMMY CARTER

10. With Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter

11. With Archbisop DESMOND TUTU

13. With UN Secretary General (1982-1991) Javier Perez de Cuellar

14. With President Rauf Denktaș With President Glafcos Clerides

15. With YASSER ARAFAT

16. With Abdullah Gül, the President of Turkey

17. Visiting DEAD Leaders ENVER HOXHA’s grave in Albania JOSEF STALİN’s train With JOSEF STALİN’s personal interpreter ZOYA ZARUBINA

18. 5 years 2 years 5 years 2 years 5 years 2 years

19. TWO PREOCCUPATIONS: 1-Large-group identity (Palestinian stones) 1984

20. 2-Ancestors’ trauma at the hand of the “Other” (Tatar- Mongol yoke[1237-1480])

21. PART 2: LARGE-GROUP IDENTITY

23. INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY: The sustained feeling of inner sameness is accompanied by a temporal continuity in the self-experience: the past, the present, and the future are integrated into a smooth continuum of remembered, felt, and expected existence for the individual. The individual identity is connected with a body image and a sense of inner solidarity and is associated with the capacity for solitude and clarity of one’s gender. It is also connected with large-group identity.

24. WHAT IS LARGE-GROUPIDENTITY? *Large-group identity is the subjective experience of tens of thousand or millions who are linked by a persistent sense of sameness, even while sharing some characteristics with those who belong to foreign large groups. *It refers to tribal affiliation, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or political ideology starting in childhood.

25. “We are Palestinians” “We are Basque” “We are Lithuanian Jews” “We are SunniMuslims” “We are Polish” “We are Communist”

26. From individual identity to large-group identity

27. From being a “generalist” (Erikson, 1956) to developing a large-group identity (THREE CONCEPTS): 1-Identifications 2-Depositing 3-Shared reservoirs

28. Belonging to a large-group identity is part of human existence. In “normal” times it makes us not to feel alone, it increases our self–esteem and pride and plays a big role in shaping our individual identity. It is also linked to prejudice.

29. *Large-group identity does not truly change after going through the adolescence passage. *Itendures throughout a lifetime.

30. Some children have parents who belong to two different ethnic or religious groups. • Wars between Georgians and South Ossetiansespecially confused and psychologically disturbed individuals with “mixed” lineage. • The same was true in Transylvania for the children born of mixed Romanian and Hungarianmarriages when the hostility between these two large groups was inflamed.

31. Existing conditions in the environment direct children to invest in this or that type of large-group belongingness. A child born in Hyderabad, India,would focus on religious/cultural issues as she develops a large-group identity.

33. PART 3: TRAUMA AT THE HAND OF THE “OTHER”

34. Natural disasters: Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, tropical storms, fires, volcanic eruptions…

35. Man-made accidental disasters

36. Assassination or accidental death of large-groups’ “transference figures”: John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Christa McAuliffe, GiorgiChanturia, Rafik Hariri.

37. Oppression from above

38. Only in ethnic, nationalistic, religious, and ideological conflicts, terrorism, wars, and war-like situations between enemy groups there is a deliberate design to dehumanize, humiliate, render helpless, and kill “the Other” in the name of a large-group identity.

39. PART 4: TRANSGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSIONS

40. After a massive trauma at the hands of the “Other,” members of a large group will face difficult tasks taming and rendering harmless the following psychological features: • 1- Sense of victimization and exposure to dehumanization, • 2- Sense of pain and open or hidden humiliation due to helplessness, • 3- Sense of guilt for survivingwhile others perished, • 4- Difficulty being assertive without facing humiliation,

41. 5- Increase in externalizations/projectionsand thus exaggeration of “bad” prejudice, • 6- Increase in narcissistic investment in large-group identity, • 7- Envy toward the victimizer and (defensive) identification with the oppressor. • 8- Difficulty, or often inability, to mournlosses.

42. “CHOSEN” TRAUMA • All tasks that are handed down contain references to the same historical event, and as decades pass, the shared mental representation of this event links all the individuals in the large group and evolves as a most significant large-group marker. (“Change of function”)

43. Greeks:The fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) to the Turks in 1453 Czechs:The Battle BilaHora in 1620 Scots:The Battle of Culloden in 1746

44. Dakota Indians: The decimation at WoundedKnee in 1890 Crimean Tatars: Deportation from Crimea in 1944 Some chosen traumas are difficult to detect because they are not connected to one well-recognized historical event. (For example, the Estonians’ chosen trauma is related to constant dominance [Swedes, Germans, Soviets] for thousands of years).

45. INABILITY TO MOURN and ENTITLEMENT IDEOLOGIES • . Entitlement ideologies refer to a shared sense of entitlement to recover what was lost in reality and fantasy during the collective trauma that evolved as a chosen trauma and during other related shared traumas.

46. Entitlement ideologies also refer to the mythologized birth of a large group, a process which later generations idealize. • Each large group’s entitlement ideology is specific.

47. Some entitlement ideologies are known by specific names in the literature: Italians: Italia Irredenta (irredentism). Greeks: Megali Idea (Great Idea). Turks: Pan-Turanism (bringing all the Turkic people together from Anatolia to central Asia) Serbs: Christoslavism. Americans: American exceptionalism.

48. MORE ON ENTITLEMENT IDEOLOGIES * Entitlement ideologies may last for centuries and may disappear and reappear when historical circumstances change and chosen traumas are activated. * They contaminate diplomatic negotiations. * They may result in changing the world map in peaceful or, unfortunately too often, dreadful ways. * They accompany the re-activation of chosen traumas.

49. The perpetrators will experience shame and guilt (may be hidden) for hurting others and such shared emotions too are involved in transgenerational transmissions.

50. DISCUSSION