International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic StudiesPublished by: John Wiley & Sons Ltd (2013)

Large-Group-Psychology in Its OwnRight: Large-Group Identity andPeace-makingVAMIK VOLKAN

ABSTRACTIn this paper I examine the psychology of “large-group identity,” its absorbing sharednarcissism, its creating a “psychological border,” its relationship to massive traumasat the hand of the “other,” its role in national or international affairs, its raisingsubstantial barriers to peaceful co-existence between “enemy” groups and describe whatis large-group psychology in its own right. In the psychoanalytic literature, the term “large group” sometimes refers to 30 to150 individuals who meet in order to deal with a given issue. I use the term“large group” to refer to tens of thousands or millions of people, most of whomwill never know or see each other, and who share a feeling of sameness, alarge-group identity. A large-group identity is the end-result of myths andrealities of common beginnings, historical continuities, geographical realities,and other shared linguistic, societal, religious, cultural and political factors. Inour daily lives we articulate such identities in terms of commonality such as“we are Apaches; we are Lithuanian Jews, we are Kurdish; we are Slav; we areSunni Muslims; we are Taliban brothers; we are communists.” Yet, a simpledefinition of this abstract concept is not sufficient to explain the power it hasto influence political, economic, legal, military and historical initiatives or toinduce seemingly irrational resistances to change such initiatives.

PALESTINIAN STONES: “DISCOVERY” OF THE IMPORTANCE OFLARGE-GROUP IDENTITYWhen I was born in Cyprus in 1932 this Mediterranean island was a Britishcolony, and in my preteen years my family lived in Nicosia, the capital city, ina house at a location where the Turkish section of the city joined the Greeksection. Next to our house stood an identical house occupied by a Greek family.They had a daughter who was probably a year younger than I. The gardens of myhouse and her house were divided by a wall built of mud bricks, and as I grewtaller I could see her in her garden. I do not remember when she and I becomeacquainted, but we would meet in the street in front of our houses. I would pointat a car or bicycle that happened to be in the street and tell her their Turkishnames. In turn she would point at things and try to teach me the Greek words

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for them. But soon she and I reached puberty and accepted cultural patterns thatmade our meetings “taboo,” as intermarrying between the Turkish and Greeklarge groups in Cyprus generally was considered to be as deeply forbidden asincest. Without being aware of it during my childhood, I experienced concretelyhow large-group identities divide people.There were other events in my preteen years that exposed me to the impactof large-group identity on people and societies. Both Cypriot Turks and CypriotGreeks were preoccupied with the impending danger coming from outside theboundaries of the island, dangers that my young mind could not fully comprehend.After the Nazis’ 1941 airborne invasion of another Mediterranean island,Crete, it was expected that they would next invade Cyprus. We dug a bombshelter in our garden and took refuge there on many occasions, sometimesroused from our beds by sirens in the middle of rainy nights. Food was rationedand we were forced to eat dark, tasteless bread and taught how to wear gasmasks. I began noticing Indian Sikh soldiers with turbans and long beardswalking through the streets of my neighborhood. I witnessed a British Spitfireshooting down an Italian war plane just above my elementary schoolyard whereI was playing with other kids. It can be said that during my childhood CypriotTurks and Cypriot Greeks had a common “master” in the British and externalenemies in the Germans and the Italians. I heard that Nazi Germans were killingJewish people, but I had never met a Jewish person. In summary, starting withmy preteen years I was exposed to the events that were connected with theabstract concept that now I call “large-group identity.”I am sure that events in my childhood played an important role in mycarrying out projects, as a psychoanalyst, during the last 30 years or so in numerousareas of the world traumatized by the “other,” and bringing together enemyrepresentatives for unofficial dialogues for peaceful co-existence (Volkan, 1988,1997, 2004, 2006a). In 1984 I was the new head of an interdisciplinaryAmerican team, under the sponsorship of the American Psychiatric Association,that had been bringing influential Israelis, Egyptians and Palestinians together.That year when we met in Switzerland I fully became aware of the central roleof large-group identity in international relations. During the first day of thismeeting, in a small group, I was sitting to the left of a well-known retired Israelimilitary man General Shlomo Gazit, with a Palestinian psychiatrist from Gaza tothe right of the General. At one point the Palestinian psychiatrist turned to theIsraeli general who had been the first Israeli administrator assigned to managethe Gaza Strip, and said: “You were the first and the last Israeli general in chargeof Gaza who was fair in dealing with the Arabs. I don’t like living under Israelioccupation one bit. As a man, I respect you. After your tenure was over,however, none of the new Israeli military commanders assigned to Gaza havebeen fair to us as you were.” As the Palestinian spoke, his emotions overtookhim. He put his right hand into the right pocket of his trousers. I could seethe frantic movements of his fingers under the cloth. I had a wild thought thatsitting next to an Israeli general who was once the head of the occupiers in Gazahad induced “castration anxiety” in the Palestinian and that he was touching hispenis in order to be sure he was not castrated. But then the Palestinianphysician, almost screaming, declared: “As long as I have this, you can’t takemy Palestinian identity from me.” While it was clear that he was speaking about

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an object in his pocket, I had no idea what “this” was.Later, I learned the full story: “This” turned out to be a small piece of stoneon which the Palestinian flag colors were painted. Although the Palestinianpsychiatrist never showed it to me directly, he described it and told me that mostPalestinians in Gaza had a similar stone. It held great meaning to him, and hefelt protective of it. Keeping his stone gave him an almost tangible sense of unitywith other Palestinians. During a time of political turmoil and shared humiliation,these little painted stones had become the shared reservoirs in whichPalestinians had, symbolically, placed externalized aspects of their ethnicidentity. With these reservoirs tucked away securely and secretly in theirpockets, away from the sight of Israelis, their sense of ethnic identity was placedin safekeeping. It was the above interaction between the Palestinian psychiatristand the retired Israeli general that would genuinely turn my attention towardstudying large-group identity from a psychological point of view and how itbecomes the central issue in conflicts among large groups. Wars, war-likesituations, terrorism, diplomatic efforts, shared losses and gains associated withshared mourning or elation are all carried out in the name of large-groupidentity. This is true even though this psychological source is usually hidden behindrational real-world considerations – political, economic, legal, and moral.

INDIVIDUAL’S IDENTITYSigmund Freud and early psychoanalysts seldom referred to the term “identity.”One well-known reference to identity is found in a speech Freud wrote forB’nai B’rith. In this text, Freud wondered why he was bound to Jewry since,as a non-believer, he had never been instilled with ethnonational pride orreligious faith. Nevertheless, Freud noted a “safe privacy of a common mentalconstruction,” and a clear consciousness of his “inner identity” [as a Jew](Freud, 1926, p. 274). Freud linked his individual identity with his large-groupidentity. When World War I began he was even enthusiastic about hisAustrian identity. In a letter to Karl Abraham written in July 1914 he stated,“For the first time in thirty years I feel myself to be an Austrian and feel likegiving this not very hopeful Empire another chance” (Abraham & Freud,1965, p. 186). But a few days later in another letter to Abraham he wasskeptical about getting involved in the shared excitement of Austrian nationalism.He wrote, “Can you perhaps tell me whether in a fortnight’s time weshall be thinking half ashamedly of excitement of these days….” (Abraham& Freud, 1965, p. 186).Some early psychoanalysts noticed the importance of large-group identity forindividuals and large groups without using the term “identity” and withoutcarrying out studies in diplomatic settings or in locations where enemies meet,whether peacefully or aggressively. For example, in 1915, Edward Jones wrote,“Patriotism, or devotion, love and loyalty towards one country (or smallerunit), involves the willingness to fight for its interests, this taking the variousforms of defending its material interests, avenging a slight on its honour,extending its prestige and importance, or resisting encroachments” (Jones,1915, p. 68). He went on to state that love of one’s country (or smaller units)is related to feelings about the self, the father and the mother. The sourceconcerning father is the least important of the three, “but is more prominentin some cases than others, leading then to patriarchal conceptions in which

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the head of state is felt to be the father, and the state itself the father’s land”(Jones, 1915, pp. 68–69). Jones stated that the relation to the mother has moresignificance. He reminded us that a country, as a rule, is conceived of as beingof feminine gender. He continued: “Most important of all is the source in selfloveand self-interest, where the self becomes more or less identified with one’sfellow-citizens and the state is a magnified self” (Jones, 1915, p. 69).It was Erik Erikson (1956) who made the concept of “identity” a psychoanalyticone. Referring to individuals, he described “identity” as, “a persistentsameness within oneself … [and] a persistent sharing of some kind of essentialcharacter with others” (Erikson, 1956, p. 57). In everyday life, adult individualscan typically refer to numerous aspects of their identity related to social orprofessional status; one may simultaneously perceive oneself as a mother orfather, a physician or carpenter, or someone who enjoys specific sports or recreationalactivities. These facets superficially seem to fit Erikson’s definition but donot fully reflect a person’s internal sense of sustained sameness. If a person’ssocial or career identity is threatened, the individual may or may not experienceanxiety. In some cases, the anxiety may be severe, but it is otherwise unlikelythat changing jobs or membership in a sports club, for example, would causesevere psychological problems. On the other hand, let us consider an adultwho acutely decompensates and goes into psychosis. Such an individual’s uniqueidentity is fragmenting and he or she may have an inner sense of terror andexperience a sensation like a star exploding into a million pieces (Glass, 1989;Volkan, 1995). The experience of this person helps to define the “core” identity– one that individuals are terrified of losing – and differentiates it from othermilder social or profession-related identities. At times, when one cannot protectoneself and faces the loss of one’s core identity, it feels like a psychologicaldeath. When Erikson referred to the aspect of identity that involves a persistentsense of inner sameness he, I believe, was specifying core identity.In psychoanalysis there is a consensus that an individual’s “identity” refers toa subjective experience. It is differentiated from related concepts such as anindividual’s “character” and “personality” which are usually used as interchangeable.The latter terms describe others’ impressions of the individual’s emotionalexpressions, modes of speech, typical actions, and habitual ways of thinking andbehaving. If we observe someone to be habitually clean, orderly, or greedy, or ifhe uses excessive intellectualization, shows excessive ambivalence andcontrolled emotional expressions, we say that this person has an obsessionalcharacter. If we observe someone who is overtly suspicious and cautious, andwhose physical demeanor suggests that she is constantly scanning the environmentfor possible danger, we say that this person has a paranoid personality.Unlike the terms “character” and “personality,” “identity” refers to an individual’sinner working model – he or she, not an outsider, senses and experiences it.Salman Akhtar (1999) looked at the individual’s identity from differentangles. He stated that the sustained feeling of inner sameness is accompaniedby a temporal continuity in the self-experience: the past, the present, and thefuture are integrated into a smooth continuum of remembered, felt, andexpected existence for the individual. The individual identity is connected witha realistic body image and a sense of inner solidarity and is associated with the

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capacity for solitude and clarity of one’s gender. Akhtar also connected theindividual’s identity with large-group identity, such as a national, ethnic orreligious identity. Akhtar’s last characteristic of an individual’s identity refersto an oedipal link between one’s personal identity and large-group identity.Akhtar’s description of this characteristic implies that the link occurs at theoedipal level when a child’s superego is crystallized. To support this view,Akhtar refers to Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel’s (1984) remark that successfulresolution of the Oedipus complex adds to the child’s entrance into the father’suniverse. I will illustrate below that the foundation of the core large-groupidentity is created during the preoedipal period; oedipal influences, howeverimportant, are added.Scientific observations of infants during the last few decades has informed usthat an infant’s mind is more active than we thought some decades ago andillustrated the role of child–mother/caretaker relationships in the developmentof the child’s mind (Fonagy & Target, 1997; Lehtonen, 2003, 2012; Lehtonenet al., 2006). The functional independence of a child’s environment and geneshas been outdated (Kandel, 1998). Robert Emde’s (1991) research on theevolution of an infant’s mind suggests the existence of a psychobiologicalpotential for “we-ness” and group-related behavior. Paul Bloom (2010),describes why we like and what we like from early childhood on and how weare biased toward our own kind. He reminds us that a three-month-old baby isattracted to the face of a person from the same race and young children liketo wear the same color or style shirt as adults in their group.Because the environment of an infant and small child is restricted to parents,siblings, relatives, and other caretakers, the extent of “we-ness” does not includea distinct dimension of large-group identity. An infant and a very small child is,to use Erik Erikson’s (1966) term, a “generalist” as far as tribal affiliation, nationality,ethnicity, religion or political ideology are concerned; the subjectiveexperience of belonging to a large group develops later.

FROM BEING A “GENERALIST” TO DEVELOPING A LARGEGROUPIDENTITYOne of the many tasks that infants need to accomplish is coming to seethemselves as psychologically separate from their caretakers and also clearlysensing the distinctions between others. Another task is to learn that themother (or other caretaker) who gratifies them and the mother who frustratesthem is the same person and correspondingly, the loved and rejectedinfant is also a single individual. Infants need to accomplish the mending ofopposites and also develop ability to differentiate themselves from others(Kernberg, 1976; Volkan, 1976). One of the pioneers of scientific observationsof infants, Daniel Stern (1985), reminds us that an infant is fed fourto six times a day. Each feeding experience produces different degrees ofpleasure. As the child grows up, in a sense, different experiences becomecategorized in the child’s mind as “good” and “bad.” Loving and frustrating,as well as loved and frustrated, aspects of people connected with theseexperiences too are divided until the integrative function is effectivelyaccomplished. The child’s subjective sense of his or her integrated as wellas differentiated self is the child’s personal identity. If the child cannot fully

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accomplish the integrative task and cannot psychologically differentiate fullyhimself or herself from others, due to biological as well as environmentalreasons, the individual’s identity, in adulthood, remains divided or evenfragmented and not stable.Earlier (Volkan, 1988) I developed a theory that as children grow up,especially at the peak of their putting their unmended sides together, adults intheir environment provide what I called “shared reservoirs” for their permanentexternalizations. Such targets are mostly inanimate things supported andsponsored by adults. These permanent externalizations do not come back intothe child. They initiate the beginnings of “we-ness” and the beginning of“others” in a concrete way. This process later becomes combined with the olderchild’s more sophisticated understanding of concepts of clan, ethnicity, nationality,race or other large-group labels.To illustrate the application of my theory, let us consider Cyprus, whereGreeks and Turks lived side by side for centuries until the island was de factodivided into two political entities in 1974 after bloody events. Greek farmersthere often raise pigs. Turkish children, like Greek children, invariably aredrawn to farm animals, but imagine a Turkish child wanting to touch andlove a piglet. The mother or other important individuals in the Turkishchild’s environment would strongly discourage the child from playing withthe piglet. For Muslim Turks, the pig is “dirty.” Now, for the Turkish childthe “pig” is perceived as an item that belongs only to Greeks, it does notbelong to the Turks’ large group. Now the Turkish child has found a reservoirfor externalizing permanently his or her unintegrated “bad” self- and objectimages. Since Muslim Turks do not eat pork, in a concrete sense what isexternalized into the image of the pig will not be re-internalized.When the child finds a suitable reservoir for unintegrated “bad” self- andobject images, the precursor of the “other” becomes established in the child’smind at an experimental level. The Turkish child at this point does not fullyunderstand what Greekness means. Sophisticated thoughts, perceptionsemotions, and images of history about the “other” evolve much later withoutthe individual’s awareness that the first symbol of the enemy was in the serviceof helping him or her avoid feeling object relations tension. Since almost allTurkish children in Cyprus will use the same target, they will share the sameprecursor of the “other” who may become the “enemy” if real world problemsbecome complicated.My coauthor of several books, Princeton historian Norman Itzkowitz(personal communication, 2000) once told me how some children of PolishJewish peasant origins living in America, far from the dangers of the oldanti-Semitic world, were taught to spit three times when passing a CatholicChurch. This may be dismissed simply as superstition, but, according toNorman, it also partakes of the notion of the church as a suitable target ofexternalization. He added, “It is easier to give up ‘bad’ targets of externalizationin an atmosphere of comparative safety, but memories of them linger on.”Nevertheless, except those who were brought as slaves, people from differentcounties with different religions and other belief systems came to the UnitedStates in order to be an American, the idealized image of the large-groupidentity for the citizens living in the United States. Because of this, the suitabletarget of externalization to which Norman referred might not be as stable as

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the suitable target of the Turkish child in Cyprus.Unintegrated “good” self- and others’ images too find suitable reservoirs ofpermanent externalization which, as the child grows, represent “we-ness” andbecome significant cultural amplifiers for one’s large group. Finnish childrenuse the sauna for their “good” reservoir. Only when Finnish children growup will they have sophisticated thoughts and feelings about Finishness. In amore general way, certain cultural amplifiers, such as language, nursery rhymes,food, dances, religious symbols, or specific geographical locations become“good” targets of permanent externalization. Certain historical events mayincrease a large group’s investment in its own suitable reservoirs of externalization.In Scotland, Highland dress dates from the thirteenth century, but it wasan event in the eighteenth century that transformed the tartan kilt into ashared “good” reservoir of Scottishness. When England defeated BonniePrince Charles at Culloden in 1746, the English banned the wearing of the kiltin Scotland under the Act of Proscription. The act was repealed 36years later,and the kilt was adopted as Scottish military dress. When George IV made astate visit to Scotland in 1882, his visit strengthened Scottish investment inthe kilt, which served to enhance Scottish “we-ness” in the face of a visit fromthe figurehead of powerful England. Many Scottish families even have theirown tartan design, which they sometimes use in their personal clothing. Effortsto suppress the wearing of the kilt have been unsuccessful; the dress continuesto serve as an ethnic reservoir signifying Scottishness.My psychoanalytic ideas on the evolution of large-groups’ need to haveenemies and allies (Volkan, 1988) fit well with current studies in evolutionarypsychology in the creation of the “other” and dehumanization as elements ofhuman nature (Smith, 2011).Another psychoanalytic concept called “identification” is well-known forits role in how a child develops large-group identity. Children identify withrealistic, fantasized, wished-for, or scary aspects of important individuals intheir environment and their psychological functions. Such individuals’mothering, fathering, sibling and mentoring functions, psychological ways ofhandling problems, belief systems, investments in cultural amplifiers, large-groupceremonies and related things are internalized and utilized to expandchildren’s internal worlds in adaptive and sometime in maladaptive ways inrelating to small as well as large groups. Identification and identity are related,but they are not interchangeable concepts. As Erik Erikson (1956) stated,identity starts when a process of identification ends. When a child stops beinga “generalist,” as far as tribal affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, religion orpolitical ideology are concerned, the subjective experience of belonging to alarge group develops. A child growing up in a Catholic family, without evenbeing aware of it, will slowly stop being a generalist and become a Catholic.If the child who grows internalizing Catholic religion is molested by a Catholicpriest, his investment in the religious large-group identity most likely will notbe an integrated one.At the foundation of who we would be, besides our biological and geneticpotentials, lies our childhood experiences with suitable reservoirs of permanentexternalizations, identifications with important others and theirfunctions and depends on the degree of our ability to develop our personaland large-group identities. Existing conditions in the environment direct

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children to invest in this or that type of large-group belongingness. A childborn in Hyderabad, India, for example, would focus on religious/culturalissues as she develops a large-group identity, since adults there define theirdominant large-group identity according to religious affiliation, Muslim orHindu (Kakar, 1996). A child born in Cyprus during the hot CypriotTurk–Cypriot Greek conflict would absorb a dominant large-group identitydefined by ethnic/national sentiments, because what was critical in this partof the world at that time was whether one was Greek or Turkish, and lessemphasis was placed on whether one was Greek Orthodox Christian or SunniMuslim. Questions of investment in ethnicity versus religion, or nationality versusrace, or one ideology versus another are not as essential to understanding large-groupidentity as are the psychodynamic processes of linking individual identityto large-group identity and how large groups use them in their interactions.Some children have parents who belong to two different ethnic or religiousgroups. If an international conflict erupts between these two large groups theseyoungsters may, even as adults, have severe psychological problems. Forexample, when I worked in the Republic of Georgia after the collapse of theSoviet Union, I noticed how 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 mixedRumanian and Hungarian marriages when the hostility between these twolarge groups was inflamed.The sharing of the large group’s tribal, national, ethnic, religious andother elements and developing ideas about large-group enemies as well asallies begins in childhood. This applies also to those who are members ofa political ideological group whose parents and the people in the childhoodenvironment are believers in the same ideology, such as communism forexample, and who, while growing up, assimilate this ideology’s specificsymbols, beliefs and historical “memories” connected with them as part oftheir large-group identity. To become a follower of a political ideology asan adult involves other psychological motivations. During the adolescentpassage there is a psychobiological review that is carried within oneself.Youngsters loosen their investments in the images of important others oftheir childhood, modifying, sometimes strengthening and even disregardingtheir identifications with them. Furthermore, they add additional identifications,this time through their experiences with their peer group or farbeyond their restricted family or neighborhood environment (Blos, 1979).Through these internal activities there is an overhauling of youngsters’persistent sense of inner sameness.The formation of a solid identity finalizes during this period along withlarge-group identity (Volkan, 1988) and children’s sense of how belongingto a specific large-group identity differentiates them from those with differentlarge-group identities. Belonging to a large group, after going through theadolescence passage, endures throughout a lifetime. Only rarely through somelong-lasting drastic historical event may a group of individuals evolve a newlarge-group identity. For example, certain southern Slavs became BosnianMuslims while under the rule of the Ottoman Empire which lasted forcenturies. Sometimes an individual’s belongingness can be hidden, as we

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sometimes see in persons after voluntary or forced migrations or in individualswho become dissenters or in persons who, for ideological and politicallyinfluenced reasons, intellectually refuse to belong to any given large group. Itis my observation, however, that after adolescence passage a person cannotchange the narcissistic investment in his or her core large-group identity, butonly can hide it.

“PSEUDO SPECIES” AND KILLING IN THE NAME OF LARGEGROUPIDENTITYIn November 2006 at Cape Town University in South Africa I was honored togive the opening speech at a meeting celebrating Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s75th birthday and the 10th anniversary of the Truth and ReconciliationCommissions’ (Volkan, 2009). After this event I spent some time at KrugerPark, a huge preserve for wild animals and birds. People who visit this placeremain in enclosed spaces to protect them from the wild animals. One day I,with other tourists, took a four-hour jeep ride with a guide and driver to seethe animals in their natural habitat. We were told that if we were lucky wewould witness unusual animal activity. We were lucky on several occasions. Iam not an expert on animal behavior, but what I will report here is what cameto my mind while watching these animals.During the ride I saw a kind of “oedipal story” performed by elephants.While we were being driven around, the air began to smell peculiar. Theguide informed us that the smell was coming from a sexually aroused youngmale elephant; it was the smell of testosterone. This excited elephant hadspotted an older male elephant with two female companions and two veryyoung elephants. The sexually aroused male elephant rushed to this “familygathering” in a fury, causing the female elephants to take their “children”and slowly moved away while the two male elephants, the younger oneand the older one, pulled up some trees with their trunks and started hittingeach other. We watched them for some time in amazement. Then we weredriven away before we could see the end of this fantastic battle. Other amazingsights at Kruger Park included rhinos pairing up, “dancing” around apond and exhibiting a concrete example of “we-ness” when there was athunderstorm that apparently frightened them. We saw a female lion whosecubs had been killed a few days earlier joining another female lion in tenderlytaking care of this lion’s newborns. We also saw a big wooden crossunder a tree that marked the spot where a guide who had stepped out ofhis vehicle to urinate was eaten by a lion.Sitting in an enclosed and secure place that evening, after witnessing theseinteresting sights and events, I decided to make a list of what I observed theanimals doing at Kruger Park: Searching for food, possessing a territory, havingsex, making babies, protecting babies, losing a loved one, forming groups,males competing with other males in the same group, exhibiting aggressionand submission, experiencing fear, developing species-oriented defenses,escaping from or fighting and killing the “other” and being preoccupied withindividualized and group survival. The two elephants that were fightingbelonged to the same species, but I was told that they would not kill oneanother. In the wild animal world at Kruger Park, “the others” who are killed– like the unfortunate guide who stepped out from his jeep to urinate, or the

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many antelopes roaming in groups – in general belong to a different species thanthe killer does. I also wondered why humans, in the name of large-groupidentity, do not hesitate to kill other persons, sometimes thousands or evenmillions of them, who belong to their own species.That evening I recalled another idea from Erik Erikson, his use of theterm pseudo species in reference to the diversity of humankind. Erikson(1966, p. 606) stated that “Man has evolved (by whatever kind of evolutionand for whatever adaptive reasons) in pseudo species, i.e., tribes, clans,classes, etc., which behave as if they were separate species, created at thebeginning of time by supernatural intent.” Erikson theorized that primitivehumans sought a measure of protection for their unbearable nakedness byadopting the armor of the lower animals and wearing their skins, feathers,or claws. On the basis of these outer garments, each tribe, clan, or groupdeveloped a sense of shared identity, as well as a conviction that it aloneharbored the one human identity. Based on Erikson’s ideas I thought thatif large human groups felt that they belonged to different species they wouldkill one another.We can add another idea to Erikson’s supposition, also speculative, that mayfurther explain what happened during the course of human evolution. Forcenturies, neighboring tribes had only each other to interact with, due to theirnatural boundaries. Neighboring groups had to compete for territory, food, sexand physical goods for their survival. Eventually, this primitive level of competitionassumed more psychological implications. Physical essentials, besidesretaining their status as genuine necessities, absorbed mental meanings as well,such as prestige, honor, power, envy, revenge, elation, humiliation, submission,and loss and evolved from being tokens of survival to becoming large-groupsymbols, traditions, religions, or historical “memories” that embedded a largegroup’sself-esteem, narcissism, and identity.Erikson’s postulations are supported by references to the “other” in manyancient documents and languages. Ancient Chinese regarded themselves aspeople and viewed the “other” as kuei or “hunting spirits.” The Apache Indiansconsidered themselves to be indeh, the people, and all others as indah, the enemy(Boyer, 1986). The Mundurucu in the Brazilian rain forest divided their world intoMundurucu, who were people, and non-Mundurucu, who were pariwat (enemies),except for certain neighbors whom they perceived as friendly (Murphy, 1957).Anthropologist Howard Stein stated that this type of pattern “cannot be literallygeneralized to all cultures, but it shows in the extreme a universal proclivity infeelings towards, perception of, and action taken against those who were not‘the people’” (Stein, 1990, p. 118). During the times about which written historyis available we constantly see interactions of Erikson’s pseudo species and onegroup seeing the other as less than human. The Christian Europeans’ treatmentof Jews during the Middle Ages, the White Americans’ treatment of African-Americans in the United States, the Nazis’ behavior and more recently eventssuch as those in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and countless other places areexamples of one large group dehumanizing another.

THE “TENT” METAPHOROne can find many phenomenologies in the literature of history, political

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science, sociology, anthropology, and philosophy that define tribal, ethnic,national, or political large groups. Often, however, a description of a largegroup’s title changes in scope and substance according to the discipline by whichit is studied. We should also keep in mind that tens of thousands or millions ofindividuals’ shared investment in the existing identity markers change as timegoes on due to historical events, revolutions, economic situations, occupations,migrations, the personality organization of political leaders and other reasons.For example, soon after the Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, the fez, aheadgear for men, was no longer a symbol of Turkish men after the foundersof modern Turkey became involved in modernization and Westernization ofthe new Republic. In today’s Turkey, religious symbols began to overshadowthe nationalist ones; it was the other way around a few decades ago. We shouldpay more attention to the psychodynamic processes that take place within alarge group and within its relationships with other groups, instead of beingpreoccupied with surface definitions of large-group identity terms.I (Volkan, 2004, 2006a) began to think of the classical Freudian theory oflarge groups (Freud, 1921) by visualizing people arranged around a giganticmaypole, which represents the group leader. Individuals in the large groupdance around the pole/leader, identifying with each other and idealizing andsupporting the leader. I have expanded this metaphor by imagining a canvasextending from the pole over tens of thousands or millions of people, forminga kind of gigantic tent. In this revised metaphor, the people still surround thepole/leader and support it – especially when there is a conflict with those livingunder another tent – determined to keep it upright, but their underlying concernis to keep the canvas taut so it can form a protective over-arching cover.The cloth of the canvas of this metaphorical tent represents large-groupidentity and its border. I have come to the conclusion that essential largegroupactivities center around maintaining the shared narcissistic investmentin the large-group’s identity and its integrity, but leader–follower interactionsare just one element of this effort.While individuals under the metaphorical gigantic tent wear their individualizedgarments (individual identities) and decorate them with symbols ofsubgroups to which they belong, social or political – families, neighborhoods,gangs, professions, political parties and so on – in certain situations everyoneunder this tent also wears the canvas of the tent as his or her shared secondgarment. In peaceful times people turn their attention toward their individualizedgarments and their interactions with their families, relatives, clans,neighbors, schools, professional and social organizations, sports clubs, localand national political parties and their Facebook pages. But when a large groupis humiliated or threatened by “others” who identify with another large group,the attacked population to a great extent abandons its routine preoccupationsand becomes obsessed with repairing, protecting and maintaining the canvas ofthe tent. The attackers who humiliate, maim and kill in the name of their largegroupidentity and who live under their own metaphorical tent also wear thecanvas of their tent as their shared second garment. Minority dissidents on bothsides remain ineffective in the interaction between the enemy groups.Tens of thousands or millions of individuals sharing a metaphorical garmentis analogous to individuals who are not constantly aware of their breathing, butif they find themselves in a smoke-filled room or develop pneumonia, they

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notice every breath they take. Similarly, when a large group is under stressand the large-group identity is injured or threatened or when a large-group killsin the name of identity, the people who belong to such large groups becomekeenly aware of their “we-ness” and quickly and definitively separate theirlarge-group identity from the identity of the “other,” the “enemy” large group.This is true of those who come to negotiation tables and face enemy representativesor even ordinary people on the street.In a large-group setting a “normal” degree of shared narcissism attaches itselfto large-group identity and creates a sense of uniqueness in its symbols andusually makes them a source of pride. When large-group identity and its amplifiersare threatened, the result is a shared narcissistic hurt associated with shame,humiliation, helplessness or feelings of revenge. An exaggerated large-groupnarcissism describes a process within a large group when people in it becomepreoccupied and obsessed with the superiority of almost anything connectedwith their large-group identity, even when such perceptions and beliefs arenot realistic. A society’s assimilation of chronic victimhood and utilization ofa sense of suffering in order secretly to feel superior or at least entitled to attentionrepresent the existence of a masochistic large-group narcissism. Malignantlarge-group narcissism explains the initiation of a process in a large group whenmembers of that large group wish to oppress or kill “others” either within oroutside their legal boundaries, a process motivated by a shared spoken orunspoken notion that contamination by the devalued “others” is threateningtheir superiority. The above definitions of large-group “normal,” exaggerated,masochistic or malignant narcissism are only simple definitions. In reality theyare usually mixed (Volkan & Fowler, 2009). A study of shared sentiments,where they come from and how they become involved in large-group identityis complicated. But in order to understand history and social/cultural processeswe need to study such investments.

LARGE-GROUP PSYCHOLOGY IN ITS OWN RIGHTStarting with Freud (1921), while discussing large-group psychology psychoanalystsprimarily explained what a leader represents for the followers, primarily asan oedipal father, and later they focused on what a large-group itself representsfor the individual group member. For example, Didier Anzieu (1984) JanineChassequet-Smirgel (1984), and Otto Kernberg (1980) wrote about sharedfantasies of members of a large group. They suggested that large groupsrepresent idealized mothers (breast mothers) who repair all narcissistic injuries.I, (Volkan, 2004) added that idealized but unintegrated self-images accompanyidealized mother images in members’ experience of the large group in whichthey belong. But, again, these theories primarily focus on individuals’ perceptions.It is assumed that external processes that threaten the group members’image of an idealized mother can initiate political processes and influenceinternational affairs. Nevertheless, an approach that focuses on individuals’perceptions does not offer specificity concerning a political or diplomaticprocess. Thus, it does not excite practitioners of politics and diplomacy orreceive much attention from political scientists. I came to realize that whatthe psychoanalytic tradition lacks is the study of both large-group psychologyin its own right and the specific elements of various mass movements. The time

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has come to evolve and expand a psychodynamic large-group psychology in itsown right and explain how large groups interact in certain patterns in times ofpeace and war.Over 30 years ago I became involved in international relations. First I workedwith Arabs and Israelis in a project sponsored by the American PsychiatricAssociation for about 6 years. Following this my interdisciplinary team fromthe University of Virginia’s Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction(CSMHI) conducted years-long unofficial diplomatic dialogues betweenAmericans and Soviets, Russians and Estonians, Croats and Bosnian Muslims,Georgians and South Ossetians, Turks and Greeks and studied post-revolutionor post-war societies such as Albania after the dictator Enver Hodxa was goneand Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion was over. These experiences directed meto begin to develop a large-group psychology in its own right.Large groups do not have one brain to think or two eyes to cry. Whenthousands or millions of members of a large group share a defense mechanismsuch as projection or a psychological journey such as mourning, what we seeare societal, cultural and political processes. Considering large-group psychologyin its own right means making “formulations” as to the unconscious anddynamic aspects of shared psychological experiences and motivations that existwithin a large group and that initiate specific social, cultural, political, ideologicalprocesses that influence this large group’s internal and external affairs, just aswe make formulations about the internal world of our individual patients inorder to summarize our understanding of their internal worlds and interpersonalrelationships. Let me give an example:We are very familiar with a person’s externalizing his or her unacceptable selfand object images or projecting unacceptable thoughts or affects on anotherperson. This creates a personal bad prejudice. “I am not the one who stinks;my neighbor is the one who stinks!” If we want to develop a large-group psychologyin its own right and understand at least one key aspect of societal prejudice,we will try to describe what happens when a large-group uses externalization andprojection. When a large group finds itself asking questions such as “Who are wenow?” or “How do we define our large-group identity now?” – usually following arevolution, a war, a humiliating economic trauma, or freedom after a longoppression by “others” – it purifies itself from unwanted elements. Such purificationsstand for large-group externalizations and projections. After the Greekstruggle for independence Greeks purified their language from all Turkish words.After Latvia gained its independence from the Soviet Union its people wantedto get rid of some 20 dead “Russian” bodies in their national cemetery. AfterSerbia became independent following the collapse of communism Serbsattempted to purify themselves of Muslim Bosnians and that led to tragediessuch as the one in Srebrenica. There are non-dangerous as well as genocidalpurifications. Understanding the meaning and psychological necessity ofpurifications can help to develop strategies to keep shared prejudices within“normal” limits and from becoming destructive.Thousands or millions of people, with or without being aware of it, assignthemselves the same tasks and respond to ethnic, religious, ideological andinternational relations accordingly. If a foreign large group deliberatelyshames, humiliates, and destroys the lives of a number of individuals in the

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name of their large-group identity in, let us say, the northern part of a country,others belonging to the same large-group identity in the south will also feeltheir pain and rage. When Al Qaida attacked New York and Washington onSeptember 11, 2001, Americans living in Louisiana or California felt as if theywere attacked too. Influences and consequences of traumas that are caused by“others” belonging to another large-group identity do not remain regional. The“split” in Israel just before and during the Second LebanonWar from July 12 toAugust 14, 2006, when the North suffered while the rest of the country seemedto continue its daily routine in an environment in which the stock marketswere doing fine, contradicted the idea that pain and rage are shared by allwho belong to the same large-group identity. This “split” in Israel was possiblebecause underneath it all, Israelis everywhere shared chronic threats to theirlarge-group identity and that the war itself took place on Lebanese soil.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BORDERLarge-group psychology in its own right also informs us about “psychologicalborders.” I mentioned above that the cloth of the canvas of a metaphoricaltent under which thousands or millions people sharing certain same sentimentslive represents large-group identity and its border. This border is a psychologicalone between “us” and “them” due to our wish to keep what one large groupexternalized and projected onto the “other” from returning to the first largegroup. Even in the present globalized world (Çevik, 2003) where persons fromdifferent large groups live in locations with mixed populations, most of thetime the “other” shared by thousands or millions of individuals is still on theopposite side of some kind of physical border: a legal political border of anation, a geographical border created by nature between tribes or ethnicgroups, or a border created by force when an enemy surrounds another largegroup. When there is no extensive conflict between neighboring large groups,a physical border remains simply a physical border; when there is a conflict, thephysical border assumes great psychological meaning as the border separatinglarge-group identities.Here is a summary of my observations of a physical border between twoantagonistic large groups and how it also became a psychological border: In1986, when tensions between Israelis and Jordanians were high, as a guest ofthe Israelis, I visited the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan River that separatesthe two countries. A white line drawn in the middle of the bridge divided thetwo countries. At that time, 16 particular trucks were allowed to pass throughthe border. Trucks that went over the bridge looked like the factory hadforgotten to finish them: doors and hoods were missing, and even the upholsteryhad been removed to allow no places to hide contraband items. In spite of this,Israeli customs officers would spend hours taking vehicles apart and puttingthem back together to assure that nothing was smuggled in from Jordan. At a“jewelry shop” located at the customs building, gold rings and bracelets of everyArab woman were evaluated as they came in and went out of Israel in order toensure that these women left nothing valuable for their Arab relatives living inIsrael. The idea was that if gold was left for Israeli Arabs, they might buy“dangerous” things to be used against Israeli Jews.In another precaution, the Israelis routinely swept a dirt road that ran parallelto the border in order to detect the footprints of people trying to cross it. It

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should be noted that the border was amply supplied with sophisticatedelectronic surveillance devices; an Israeli officer informed me, perhaps jokingly,that through electronic surveillance the Israeli authorities could even knowwhen an important person in Jordan went to the bathroom or when he visiteda woman who was not his wife. Even if there was justification for the extraprecaution, the idea of a psychological border was intertwined with the physicalborder at the Allenby Bridge, resulting in rituals that created a psychological gapbetween the two countries.A psychological border supports the “security” of large-group identity.Donald Winnicott (1986a, 1986b) played with diagrams, using a circle torepresent a person. His belief that most individuals are unintegrated led himto examine political divisions. He compared Berlin, which was still divided atthat time, to his diagram of a circle with a line through its center that representsthe unintegrated individual. He noted that some political divisions, such as theborder between England and Wales, can be looked upon in terms of geographyand mountains, but a man-made border like the Berlin Wall could never beassociated with the word “beauty.” However, he acknowledged positive aspectsof the Berlin Wall; in the 1960s there would have been war without the wall.He argued that a dividing line between opposing forces, at its worst postponesconflict and at its best holds opposing forces away from each other for longperiods of time. During this respite people may pursue the arts of peace, whichspeak to the temporary success of a dividing line between opposing forces, thelull between times when the wall has ceased to segregate good and bad(Winnicott, 1986b).When there is shared anxiety and regression within large groups in conflict,a simple physical border between them is not enough to protect the antagonists’identities. The physical border must evolve as a psychological border todefend against any possibility of interpenetration. During the Cold War, theBerlin Wall stood as the ultimate symbol of the physical as well as psychologicalborder between the East and theWest. East and West Germany developedtheir own large-group identities. As a psychological border, the BerlinWall, inthe years when it was experienced as stable, allowed the societies with differentpolitical ideological large-group identities on either side to effectivelyexternalize, project, and displace their shared unwanted self- or object images,thoughts, and affects onto the other side without feeling anxiety that theseelements would be returned to them. When the Berlin wall collapsed inNovember 1989 the psychological border collapsed too. At that time I thoughtthat the initial elation we witnessed over the reunion of same-blood peopleafter 40 years and over the loss of an “enemy,” would be accompanied orfollowed by the more complicated psychological processes of facing the“boomerang” effect of externalizations, projections, and displacements.Individuals in both halves of the reunited country would struggle betweenwishing to hold on to and wishing to modify their existing large-group identity,and they would have to contend with mourning and adaptation. In short, Ibelieved that if we studied people’s internal experiences concerning theremoval of a physical border between East and West Germany, we couldunderstand the nature of a psychological border between two large-groupidentities. We could thus apply this knowledge not only to the case ofGermany, but to other large-group conflicts, recognizing that the psychodynamics

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of these relationships can be usefully compared even though thephysical and historical realities would of course be very different.Psychoanalyst Gabriele Ast from Munich and I started to work withGermans from both sides of the former border and to collect data about theirshared, but mostly unconscious, perceptions of the border. We planned tointerview at least 100 persons. These interviews were envisioned as similar topsychoanalytic diagnostic interviews, with an emphasis on the individual’sexperience with the mental images of historical events, that is, how the imagesof such occurrences appeared in their free associations, fantasies, and dreams asconnected with their personal developmental psychosexual or aggressive issues.Note, for example, the dream of a 25-year-old law student from former EastGermany named Hans soon after the German reunification. He had, in actuality,helped his parents build a house on a hill overlooking a lake. In his dream,however, a wealthy man builds a much larger house on the same hill. This manthen tells Hans and his family to move out of their newly built home because itobstructs his view of the lake. As consolation, the wealthy man offers the secondfloor of his house to the family, and though Hans’ parents quarrel with their“landlord,” the rich man wins in the end. In the dream, Hans’ family houseexplodes as soon as Hans and his family move in with the wealthy “landlord.”Hans’ associations to this dream, apart from those relating to divisions withinhis childhood family, were to the German reunification. A former EastGerman, Hans knew that the wealthy neighbor in the dream represented WestGermany. His experiences with early emotional and physical divisions in hisfamily (between his mother and father and between his mother and grandmother)were condensed in the country’s division between East and West.While the luxury of the rich man’s larger house was appealing to Hans, hisold self (his family’s house) in the German Democratic Republic was threatenedand disappearing. He spoke of how he was paralyzed for half an hourand felt completely numb on the night of the official German reunification.He noted that “the danger was over” because he realized that the threat of amilitary confrontation was eliminated, “but he was overwhelmed by theanxiety that, with the two sides now united, the ‘bad’ representations symbolizedby West Germany would destroy the ‘good’ representations symbolized byEast Germany” (Ast, 1991, p. 102).Another interviewee was Martin, a physicist from West Germany who was33 at the time of reunification. He was more direct than Hans – his fantasiesassociated with reunification caused a panic reaction. Martin’s parents haddivorced when he was a child, and his father had taken his siblings to anothercountry. Martin did not have many realistic experiences with his father, buthis mother told him that his father was “a monster, a brute.” During his teenageyears, Martin contemplated joining his father for a while, but he remained inWest Germany with his mother, away from the “monster” father. His father’smental representation was also externalized onto East Germany and the Nazis.Martin had become consciously aware of the meaning of the Holocaust whenhe was a teenager. He believed that the GDR provided, in a disguised way, morederivatives of National Socialism than existed in West Germany. Thus, hecould displace his negative feelings about West Germany onto the countryacross the border, and there they would be contained. Martin married a Turkishwoman living in Germany – in his mind Turks in West Germany were the

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inheritors of the prejudices previously held against Jews. During the interview,it appeared that his marriage to a Turk helped bolster his wish to avoid becominga Nazi, a symbolic representation of his “monster father,” and helpedconvince him that he did not have untamed aggression. It seemed that Martinutilized the division between East and West to keep the mental representationsof his parents separate from each other. Therefore, the German reunification impliedthe return of Nazism to his self-representation, in which his aggression hadbeen denied; Martin’s denial was no longer effective after the reunification.Martin then recalled how it was his mother, with whom he stayed after thedeparture of his father and siblings, who was openly prejudiced against Jews.During the interview, Martin reported, “The ideas written about Jews in derStürmer [the Nazi propaganda magazine] are still in her mind [though she was amember of SPD, Social Democratic Party of Germany]” (Ast, 1991, p. 104).A West German woman, Sabine, in her late twenties at the time ofreunification, also participated in our project. At the time, she was undergoingher personal analysis as part of her psychoanalytic training. The reunificationpleased Sabine in some ways, but also instilled the fear that it would “recreatethe murderer, the monster [Nazis, Hitler] that perpetuated so many horrors”(Volkan, 1990, p. 3). She, like Martin, had externalized, projected anddisplaced her thoughts and feelings about the Nazis onto East Germans. Soonafter the reunification she had a dream in which people were standing in anopen truck. “When I saw the truck I knew it was a picture from the Nazi era,of Jews being deported to Auschwitz. I felt very guilty for coming up with thispicture” (Volkan, 1990, p. 3). Since her analyst was Jewish, she developedanxiety about reporting her dream to him. She and her analyst would speak ofthe Holocaust but could not fully explore this topic to analyze her fantasiesand affects related to the Third Reich.Our project was unfortunately truncated due to insufficient funds after Astand I had conducted only 21 interviews. The interviews described above andthe others, however, afforded us a glimpse into the way mental images of ahistorical event as significant as German reunification are accompanied bypersonal and large-group identity issues, emotions, and fantasies. Perhaps mostconclusive was that some of these identity issues, emotions, and fantasies seemto be shared by many of the participants. We felt that these interviews supportedmy initial hypothesis that the 40-year-long separation between East and WestGermany had created two different large-group identities and that the Germanreunification initially induced anxieties and other affects concerning personaland large-group identity issues in both East and West Germans. Although thisproject could not be completed, our initial findings are supported by otherresearchers who have investigated the psychology of German reunification.Their studies also showed that certain images related to the Third Reich andthe Holocaust and their associated affects and fantasies had been externalized,projected, and displaced from one side of the border to the other and that thereunification destabilized this situation. For example, in separate studies DieterOhlmeier (1991), Hans-Joachim Maaz (1991), Adam Weisberger (1995) andIrene Misselwitz (2003) declared that the reunification of Germany was not onlya major political change, but was also a major psychological event, prompting anew wave of renegotiations with the Nazi past. Among these renegotiations

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within German society was the “Nazi skinhead” movement, a maladaptivemanifestation of shame and guilt derivations related to the mental representationof the Third Reich (Rosenthal, 1997; Streeck-Fischer, 1999). As Ohlmeier(1991) suggested, psychoanalytic considerations of the German reunificationevoked questions of psychology for Germans, and the necessity of a psychohistoricalreflection of the Germans since 1933. When Ohlmeier referred to “apsychology for Germans” he was considering large-group identity issues whichbecame stirred up after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and which, since then, havebeen tackled by some in the German psychological community.In current times another physical wall, unexpectedly, appears to provide apsychological security for a large group. Warren Spielberg who has donepsychopolitical work on Israeli-Palestinian issues reported an observation thatsupports Winnicott’s idea about the Berlin Wall. Spielberg wrote:Separation Wall [in Jerusalem] constructed by Israel has restricted Palestinians’ ability totravel freely within their communities (the wall cuts substantially into the West Bank,sometimes dividing Palestinian farmland and towns, rather than tracing the pre-1967borders), and even as it has generated feelings of imprisonment, threat, and outrage,provoking some Palestinians to angrily describe it as an “Apartheid Wall,” it has alsoinspired many toward self-reliance and improvement.This observation about the Wall’s unexpected silver lining is not meant to undercutlegitimate criticisms of the Wall or foreclose debates over the ethics of its construction.Nonetheless, in my interviews with West Bank Palestinians I found that the Israelisecurity barrier has provoked many Palestinians to turn inward, to focus on their ownhopes and dreams, and to build the infrastructure of their own lives complementing thework being done by the government on the community level. It has also diminished theintruding psychological specter of the threatening “Israeli in mind” who are now seen asliving “behind the Wall.” This has given many young Palestinians some emotional respiteand more internal space to imagine their own futures. (Spielberg, 2011, p. 3.)

I belong to an interdisciplinary group of individuals from the United States,Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Iran and Arab countries (see:www.internationaldialogueinitiative.com) who have been meeting twice a Q3year since 2007 to examine world affairs primarily through a psychopoliticalpoint of view. When we met in Jerusalem in early 2012 we had three formerIsraeli ambassadors and Palestinians, including a Palestinian from the Westbank who has been a key negotiator with the Israelis, as guests.What we heardat this meeting supported Spielberg’s findings.

LARGE-GROUP IDENTITY MARKERSWe can visualize different colorful designs that are stitched on the canvas ofeach large group’s metaphorical tent. Such designs on a canvas only belongand are meaningful to tens of thousands or millions of people living under it. Icall them “large-group identity markers” which are wide-ranging concrete orabstract items such as language, flags, nursery rhythms, food or Finnish peoplessaunas and Scottish peoples’ kilts. Besides such visible or easily perceived“typical” identity markers let us consider three more types of designs on thelarge-group’s canvas.The first one is manufactured by the “other” large group. Picture two largegrouptents side-by-side. Individuals in the first tent throw mud, excrement,and refuse – that is, they externalize their “bad” images of themselves and others

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and project their own unwanted thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and expectations –onto the canvas of the second tent. Note that this action is taken toward thelarge-group identity itself, the canvas, and not necessarily toward the individualswho possess this group identity. Maurice Apprey (1993, 1998) studied how thewhite-American large group’s perceptions of the African-American large grouphad been assimilated into the African-American large-group identity experience– for example, how black-on-black crime had become a modified version of themental representation of white–black historical interactions.The second design standing for a large-group identity is created by “charismatic”leaders such as Kemal Atatürk, Vladimir Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi, andMao Zedong. Such leaders bring hundreds of thousands or millions of peopleout of political isolation and into a new kind of political participation (Abse& Ulmann, 1977; Volkan & Itzkowitz, 2011, Weber 1923; Zaleznik, 1984).Sometimes these leaders go a step further: driven to meet the requirements oftheir own internal worlds, they reshape the external world of their followersand their subjective feelings about their large-group identity. I must also addhere that when large-group identities are threatened, the personality organizationof the political leader even though he may not be a charismatic one, evenin democracies, becomes a major factor in giving adaptive or maladaptivedirection to large-group’s movements (Volkan, 2004). There are alwayssubgroups and dissenters within a large group, but unless they evolve a hugefollowing that leads to a drastic modification of large-group identity, they donot substantially change how large groups react and deal with “others” whoare foreign to them.The third type of design represents some specific realistic or mythologizedpast historical events and heroes and martyrs associated with them. Suchhistorical events can be categorized as glorified or traumatic; usually they areboth. For example, the Soviet’s Great Patriotic War is glorified, illustratingthe heroism and determination of the Soviet people; but it was also unbelievablytraumatic. A large group’s “identity markers” are invested with shared narcissismand usually accepted as “superior” and as a source of pride. If they relate tohistorical hurts, they are subjectively experienced as “bigger” than others’ hurts.In 1991 I described the terms “chosen glory,” and “chosen trauma” for thefirst time. Chosen glories and chosen traumas represent the third type of designon the large-group’s tent canvas. Chosen glories are shared mental representationsof pride and pleasure evoking past events and heroes that are recollectedritualistically. Past victories in battle and great accomplishments of a politicalor religious nature frequently appear as chosen glories. For example, large groupscelebrate their independence days. Some chosen glories and heroic personsattached to them are often heavily mythologized over time.Chosen glories are passed on to succeeding generations in parent/teacher–child interactions and through participation in ritualistic ceremonies. They linkchildren of a large group with each other and with their large group, and thechildren experience increased self-esteem by being associated with such glories.It is not difficult to understand why parents and other important adults pass themental representations of chosen glories to their children; this is a pleasurableactivity. In stressful situations political leaders reactivate the mental representationsof chosen glories and heroes associated with them to bolster the shared

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identity of their followers. During the first Gulf War Saddam Hussein mademany references to Sultan Saladin’s victories over the Crusaders, even thoughSaladin was not an Arab, but a Kurd.A chosen trauma is the shared mental representation of an event in a largegroup’s history in which the group suffered catastrophic loss, humiliation, andhelplessness at the hands of its enemies. While chosen glories increase collectiveself-esteem, they do not burden the next generation(s) with complicated sharedpsychological tasks as chosen traumas do. Below I will explain such tasks andillustrate why chosen traumas, in supporting large-group identity and its cohesiveness,are more complex than chosen glories and why chosen traumas aremuch stronger large-group identity markers than chosen glories.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHOSEN TRAUMASLarge groups’ massive traumas are of various types. Some are from naturalcauses, such as tropical storms, floods, volcanic eruptions, forest fires, orearthquakes. Some societal traumas are accidental man-made disasters, likethe 1986 Chernobyl accident that spewed tons of radioactive dust into theatmosphere. Sometimes, the death of a person who functioned as a shared“transference figure” for many members of the large group provokes traumaticsocietal responses – as did the assassinations of John F. Kennedy (Wolfenstein& Kliman, 1965) and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States, YitzhakRabin in Israel (Erlich 1998; Raviv, Sadeh, Raviv, Silberstein, & Diver,2000), Prime Minister Olof Palme in Sweden, the National Democratic Partyleader Giorgi Chanturia in the Republic of Georgia, former Prime MinisterRafik Hariri in Lebanon or the deaths of the American astronauts, especiallyteacher Christa McAuliffe, in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion(Volkan, 1997).Other massive traumas are due to the deliberate actions of an enemy group,as in ethnic, national, religious and political ideological conflicts. Suchcatastrophes themselves range from chronic mistreatment or oppression of agroup by “others” within one national boundary, to terrorist attacks, warsand even genocide, and from the traumatized group actively fighting its powerfulenemy in desperation to the traumatized group being rendered completelypassive and helpless.When nature shows its fury and people suffer, those affected tend ultimatelyto accept the event as fate or as the will of God (Lifton & Olson, 1976a, 1976b). Q4Following man-made accidental disasters, survivors blame a small number ofindividuals or governmental organizations for their carelessness. When a leaderis killed (not by “others” but by an individual belonging to the same large-groupas did the leader) the rage is against that killer and, if one exists, against thepolitical organization to which the killer belongs. However, when a traumaresults from oppression, war or other ethnic, national, religious or politicalconflict, especially when the victimized large group is rendered passive and helpless,there is an identifiable enemy large group that has deliberately inflictedpain, humiliation, environmental restriction, destruction and death on itsvictims. Such collective trauma takes place because the affected large groupand the perpetrators belong to different large groups and the killing and the

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destruction is in the name of large-group identity. Only this kind of traumamay evolve as a chosen trauma. A large group does not “choose” to be victimizedby another large group and subsequently lose self-esteem, but it does “choose” topsychologize and dwell on a past traumatic event and make it a major design tobe stitched on the canvas of a large-group tent.After a massive trauma at the hands of the “other,” members of a large groupwill face difficult tasks taming and rendering harmless the following psychologicalfeatures: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 surviving while others perished;4. Difficulty being assertive without facing humiliation;5. Increase in externalizations/projections and thus exaggeration of “bad”prejudice;6. Increase in narcissistic investment in large-group identity;7. Envy toward the victimizer and (defensive) identification with theoppressor; and8. Difficulty, or often inability, to mourn losses.When such shared psychological experiences continue and the members of alarge group cannot find adaptive solutions for them, they become involved inthe next shared experience:9. Shared transgenerational transmission of psychological tasks to deal with theinfluence of the trauma.Meanwhile the perpetrators will experience shame and guilt (may be hidden)for hurting others and such shared emotions too are involved in transgenerationaltransmissions. Collective transgenerational transmissions lead to the establishmentof chosen traumas.

INABILITY TO MOURN AND TRANSGENERATIONALTRANSMISSIONSPsychoanalytic knowledge of transgenerational transmissions of trauma fromone generation to the next mainly comes from studies on Jewish people whowere survivors of the Holocaust and their offspring. The literature on this topicis vast. (For information on such studies see; Fromm, 2012; Grubrich-Simitis,1979; Kestenberg & Brenner, 1996; Volkan, Ast, & Greer, 2002). Here I willfirst describe briefly how transgenerational transmission occurs between an adultand a developing child and second how collective transgenerational transmissiontakes place.There is fluidity between a child’s “psychic borders” and those of the motherand other caretakers, and the child-mother/caretaker experiences generallyfunction as a kind of “incubator” for the child’s developing mind. Besidesgrowth-initiating elements, however, the caretaker from the older generationcan also transmit undesirable psychological elements to the child. One of thebest-known examples of a relatively simple negative form of transgenerationaltransmission comes from Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham’s observationsof women and children during the Nazi attacks on London. Freud andBurlingham (1942) noted that small children under three did not becomeanxious during the bombings unless their mothers were afraid. The fluiditymentioned above also may occur among adults under certain conditions of

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regression, such as during and after massive catastrophes at the hand of others.There are many forms of transgenerational transmission. Besides anxiety, depression,elation, worries and fantasies, there are various psychological tasks that anadult may assign to a child.An adult may “deposit” his or her own injured self-images within the childalong with images of others who were involved in the traumatic event – evensometime the image of the perpetrator – and then give psychological tasks to thesetransferred images that aim to ease the pain and terror of the original trauma orcontrol the outcome of the trauma. Depositing is closely related to “identification”in childhood, but it is in some ways significantly different from identification. Inidentification, the child is the primary active partner in taking in and assimilatingan adult’s images and owning this person’s ego and superego functions. In depositing,the adult person more actively pushes his or her specific images into thedeveloping self-representation of the child. In other words, the adult person usesthe child (mostly unconsciously) as a permanent reservoir for certain self- andother images belonging to that adult. The experiences that created these mentalimages in the adult are not accessible to the child; yet, those mental images arepushed into the child, without the experiential/contextual framework whichcreated them. Memories belonging to one person cannot be transmitted to anotherperson, but an adult can deposit his or her traumatized self- and other images into achild’s self-representation and assign tasks to such internal images (Volkan,2006a). Judith Kestenberg’s term (1982) “transgenerational transportation” andHaydée Faimberg’s (1993) description of “the telescoping of generations,” Ibelieve, refer to depositing traumatized images. It is related to a well-known conceptin individual psychology called “projective identification” (Klein, 1946).To illustrate the concept of depositing, let me refer to the well-knownphenomenon of the “replacement child” (Cain & Cain, 1964; Poznanski,1972; Volkan & Ast, 1997): A child dies; soon after, the mother becomespregnant again, and the second child lives. The mother “deposits” her imageof the dead child – including her affective relationship with the dead child –into the developing identity of her second child. The second child now hasthe task of keeping this “deposited” identity within him- or herself. There aredifferent ways for the child to respond to this task: The child may adapt to beinga replacement child by successfully “absorbing” what has been deposited.Alternately, the child may develop a “double identity,” experiencing whatclinicians call a “borderline personality organization.” Or, the second childmay be doomed to living up to the idealized image of the dead sibling within,becoming obsessively driven to excel.Similarly, adults who are acutely traumatized may deposit their traumatizedself-images into the developing identities of their children. A Holocaustsurvivor who appears well adjusted may be able to behave “normally” becausehe has deposited aspects of his traumatized self-images into his children’sdeveloping selves and has given the children “tasks” to deal with these images.His children, then, are the ones now responding to the horror of the Holocaust,“freeing” the older victim from his burden. As with replacement children, suchchildren’s own responses to being carriers of injured parental self-images vary

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because of each child’s individual psychological make-up that is independentof the deposited images.Depositing in the large-group psychology refers to a process shared bythousands or millions that starts in childhood and becomes like “psychologicalDNA,” creating a sense of belonging. After experiencing a collective catastropheinflicted by an enemy group, affected individuals are left with self-imagessimilarly (though not identically) traumatized by the shared event. Tens ofthousands or millions of individuals deposit such images into their childrenand give them tasks such as: “Regain my self-esteem for me,” “Put my mourningprocess on the right tract,” or “Be assertive and take revenge.” It is thistransgenerational conveyance of long-term “tasks” that perpetuate the cycle ofsocietal trauma. Though each child in the second generation has his or herown individualized personality, all share similar links to the trauma’s mentalrepresentation and similar unconscious tasks for coping with that representation.If the next generation cannot effectively fulfill their shared tasks – and this isusually the case – they will pass these tasks on to the third generation, and soon. Such conditions create a powerful unseen network among tens of thousands,or millions of people.Depending on external conditions, shared tasks may change from generationto generation. For example, in one generation the shared task may be togrieve the ancestors’ loss and to feel their victimization. In the followinggeneration, the shared task may be to express a sense of revenge for that lossand victimization. But whatever its expression in a given generation, keepingalive the mental representation of the ancestors’ trauma remains the core task.The mental representation of the event emerges as a most significant large-group identity marker; it becomes a chosen trauma. Similar processes also mayappear in the descendants of victimizers. Among the descendants of perpetratorsthere is more preoccupation with consequences of shared feelings of guiltthan preoccupation with the shared feeling of humiliation. Both groups share asevere difficulty or inability to mourn (Mitscherlich & Mitscherlich, 1975).Not all past massive tragedies at the hands of others evolve as chosentraumas. The mythologizing of victimized heroes and telling of moving storiesassociated with a collective trauma popularized in songs and poetry, andpolitical leaders of later times creating a preoccupation with a past traumaand related events, play a role in turning a historic event into a chosen trauma.Sometimes a combination of events sets the stage for the future evolution of achosen trauma. On April 10, 2010 Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wifeMaria Kaczyńska and many of Poland’s highest military and civilian leaderswere killed in an airplane crash while approaching Smolensk Air Base inRussia. They were on their way to commemorate the Katyn Forest massacreof Polish nationals by the Soviets that had occurred in April-May 1940. Themassacre was carried out by the Soviet secret service with the knowledge andapproval of Josef Stalin and the Soviet Politburo. About 22,000 Polesincluding military and police officers, intellectuals, business people and priestswere murdered. It was not until 1990 that Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledgedthat the Soviet secret service had executed the Poles and confirmed two otherburial sites similar to the site at Katyn. The plane crash, I believe, will providethe extra element that will turn the Katyn massacre into a chosen trauma.There are firmly established chosen traumas: Russians recall the “memory” of

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the Tatar-Mongol invasions in the thirteen and fourteen centuries; Greeks linkthemselves when they share the “memory” of the fall of Constantinople(Istanbul) to the Turks in 1453; Czechs commemorate the 1620 Battle of BilaHora, which led to their subjugation under the Hapsburg Empire for nearly300 years; Scots keep alive the story of the battle of Culloden of 1746 and thefailure of Bonnie Prince Charlie to restore a Stuart to the British throne; theDakota people of the United States recall the anniversary of their decimationat Wounded Knee in 1890; and Crimean Tatars define themselves by theircollective suffering during their deportation from Crimea in 1944; Israelis andJews around the globe, including those not personally affected by the Holocaust,all define their large-group identity by direct or indirect references to it. TheHolocaust is still too “hot” to be considered a truly established chosen traumaas described above, but it already has become a large-group marker, even thoughOrthodox Jews still refer to the 586 BC destruction of the Jewish temple inJerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylonia as the chosen trauma of the Jews.Some chosen traumas are difficult to detect because they are not simplyconnected to one well-recognized historical event. For example, the Estonians’chosen trauma seems unrelated to one specific event, but to the fact that theyhad lived under almost constant dominance (Swedes, Germans, Russians) forthousands of years.Certain religious events are also utilized as chosen glories or traumas or amixture of them. One might say that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ could beconsidered a very special and very major chosen trauma for Christians. ForShiites, the Battle of Karbala that took place in 680 (the year 61 of the Islamiccalendar) in present-day Iran has the most significant place in their religiouslarge-group identity. It was during this battle that Husain, a son of the fourthCaliph Ali ibn Abi Talip and grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, togetherwith his family and followers, were deprived of water and killed upon thedesert plain by soldiers of Yezid, the claimant of the caliphate. Shiites believethat after the death of Mohamed in 632, religious leadership of the Islamicfaith belonged to Ali ibn Abi Talip, Husain’s father. Ali was passed over,however, and when he was finally proclaimed caliph, his rule was opposed byMu’awiyah ibn Sufyan. Ali was succeeded by his son Hasan, who Shiitesbelieve was poisoned at the behest of Mu’awiyah, who then became caliph.Husain reportedly refused to pledge his allegiance to him, and was attemptingto lead his family to safety when he was attacked by Mu’awiyah’s son Yezid inKarbala. As a chosen trauma, Shiites relive this historical atrocity on theanniversary of the Karbala Battle. Those Westerners who are interested inpresent-day Iran’s internal and external affairs need to study the psychologicalinfluence this Shiite chosen trauma has on the Iranian large group’s social,cultural and political processes.Mehmet Âkif Ersoy applied the concept of chosen trauma in his analysis ofthe Alavi population in Turkey. People of Alavi faith, a sect of Islam inTurkey, are followers of the fourth Caliph Ali, but they differentiatethemselves from Shiites. Alavis in Anatolia have encountered, on and off,discrimination by the Sunni majority since early Ottoman times. One of theirheroes, Pir Sultan Abdal, was a famous folk poet and religious leader who livedin the sixteenth century and was executed by the Sunni-dominated Ottomangovernment. This event evolved as a chosen trauma for Alavis in Turkey,

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and they have kept the mental representation of Pir Sultan Abdal “alive.”Interestingly, the Alavis in Turkey also borrowed the “memory” of Karbala, achosen trauma of Shiites, as a chosen trauma. Ersoy wrote: “I suppose thatthe traumatic events that the Alavis of Anatolia experienced, as well as theirhistorical proximity to Shiites, have played an essential role in the acceptanceand adoption of Shiite cultural norms such as Karbala, and its incorporation asan Alavi chosen trauma” (Ersoy, 1998, p. 49).

ENTITLEMENT IDEOLOGIESAffective aspects of some chosen traumas may remain dormant, and somechosen traumas may only be recalled during anniversaries. However, those thatbecome connected with what I term “entitlement ideologies” are prone toreactivation by emotions, and play a significant role in large-group social,political and military affairs. Entitlement ideologies refer to a shared sense ofentitlement to recover what was lost in reality and fantasy during the collectivetrauma that evolved as a chosen trauma and during other related shared traumas.Or they refer to the mythologized birth of a large group, a process that latergenerations idealize. They deny difficulties and losses that had occurred duringit, and imagine their large group as if it is composed of persons belonging to asuperior species. Holding on to an entitlement ideology primarily reflects acomplication in large-group mourning, an attempt both to deny losses as wellas a wish to recover them, a narcissistic reorganization accompanied by “bad”prejudice for the other.Each large group’s entitlement ideology is specific. Some entitlementideologies are known by specific names in the literature. What Italians call“irredentism” (related to Italia Irredenta), what Greeks call “Megali Idea”(Great Idea), what Turks call “Pan-Turanism,” what Serbs call“Christoslavism,” and what extreme religious Islamists of today call “the returnof an Islamic Empire” are examples of entitlement ideologies. Nancy Hollander(2010) describes how the American entitlement ideology, usually called“American exceptionalism,” was inflamed after September 11, 2001. Suchideologies may last for centuries and may disappear and reappear whenhistorical circumstances change and chosen traumas are activated. Theycontaminate diplomatic negotiations. They may result in changing the worldmap in peaceful or, unfortunately too often, dreadful ways.Here is a brief reference to Greek’s chosen trauma of losing Constantinople(Istanbul) in 1453. I will let Kyriacos Markides, a Cypriot-born Greek sociologist,describe his own large-group’s preoccupations and their role in the “Cyprusproblem.” Markides refers to Greeks’ “Great Idea” as:a dream shared by Greeks that someday the Byzantine Empire would be restored and allthe Greek lands would once again be united in Greater Greece…The “Great Idea” foundexpression in … parts of the Greek world, such as Create and the Ionian Islands. One Q5could argue that the “Great Idea” had an internal logic, pressing for realization in everypart of the Greek world which continued to be under foreign rule. Because the Greeksof Cyprus had considered themselves historically and culturally to be Greek, the “GreatIdea” has had an intense appeal. Thus, when the church fathers called on the Cypriotsto fight for union with Greece, it did not require much effort to heat up emotions …Enosis [In Greek “enosis” means “union.” Here it refers to the Greek Cypriots’ movementto unite Cyprus with Greece] did not originate in the church but in the minds of intellectualsin their attempt to revive Greek-Byzantine civilization. However, being the most

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central and powerful of institutions, the church contributed immensely to its development.The church embraced the movement and for all practical purposes became itsguiding nucleus. (Markides, 1977, pp. 10–11)

Markides’ description of “Megali Idea” is brief, but thorough. Note that whenhe referred to “Cypriots” who were called upon by the church fathers to fight forunion with Greece, he only meant Cypriot Greeks. After Greece joined theEuropean Union, I came to the conclusion that the influence of Megali Ideaon Greeks’ political movements has decreased. But, even today it is obvious tome that keeping Megali Idea alive, especially in the Greek Church, is one of thebig obstacles to finding a “solution” to the “Cyprus problem.”A chosen trauma that I (Volkan, 1997) studied in depth is the Serbianchosen trauma, the shared mental representation of the Battle of Kosovo in1389, along with the entitlement ideology Christoslavism (Sells, 2002) to whichit is linked. I believe that this is critical to understanding the contributions oflarge-group psychology in the tragedies in Bosnia in 1992 and in Kosovo in1999. Despite the fact that in 1389 the leaders of both sides – Ottoman SultanMurat I and Serbian Prince Lazar – were both killed during the Battle of Kosovo,and despite the fact that Serbia remained autonomous for over 70 years after thebattle, the shared representation of the battle evolved as the major Serbianchosen trauma, marking the end of a glorious period of Serbian power and thebeginning of their subjugation to the Ottoman Empire. In certain periods,Prince Lazar’s image was used to cement a shared sense of victimization andmartyrdom under Moslem rule; during others, his image became a symbol ofthe Serbs’ desire to reverse the humiliation of the loss by re-conquering Kosovo.As decades passed, Prince Lazar became associated with Jesus Christ, and iconsshowing Lazar’s representation in fact decorated many Serbian churchesthroughout the six centuries following the battle. Even after Kosovo Provincewas taken back from the Ottoman Turks in the late nineteenth century, Lazar’s“ghost” was still not put to rest. During the communist period when thegovernment discouraged hero worship, Serbs were able to drink (introject) apopular red wine called “Prince Lazar.”After the collapse of communism, mental representations of Lazar and theBattle of Kosovo were resurrected by Slobodan Milošević, along with somemembers of the Serbian church and some members of the Serbian academiccommunity. As the six-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovoapproached in 1989, with the permission and encouragement of Milošević,Lazar’s 600-year-old remains, which had been kept north of Belgrade, wereplaced in a coffin and taken, over the course of the year, to almost every Serbvillage and town, where they were received by huge crowds of mourners dressedin black. Again and again during this long journey, Lazar’s remains were symbolicallyburied and reincarnated, until they were buried for good at the originalbattleground in Kosovo on June 28, 1989. The Serbian people began feeling,without being intellectually aware of it, that the defeat at the Battle of Kosovohad occurred only recently, a development made possible by the fact that thechosen trauma had been kept effectively alive for centuries.On June 28, 1989, the six-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, ahelicopter brought Serbian president Slobodan Milošević to the burial groundwhere a huge monument made of red stone symbolizing blood had been built.

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In the mythology, Prince Lazar had chosen the Kingdom of Heaven over theKingdom of Earth. By design, Milošević descended from a helicopter,representing Prince Lazar/Jesus Christ coming to earth to find a new Kingdom,a Greater Serbia. Propaganda prepared an atmosphere that allowed theinflammation of the Serbian entitlement ideology, Christoslavism (Sells,2002), which gave permission to create a Greater Serbia. Atrocities wouldeventually be committed against Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims, whom modernSerbs came to perceive as extensions of the Ottoman enemy of distant history.Thus, the Serbian large-group identity was reinforced and reinvigoratedby the lasting emotional power of this ancient event – at terrible cost tonon-Serbs.

TIME COLLAPSEReactivated chosen trauma and entitlement ideology strengthen the people’ssense of belonging to the same group, their shared large-group identity.Their reactivation may become a crucial resistance to finding a peacefulsolution to the group’s problems involving its current enemies. Even thougha chosen trauma refers to ancestors’ victimhood, the current group does notwish to give up its investment in it. To do so would mean giving up asignificant aspect of the shared large-group identity, so the large group resistsmaking peace with its contemporary enemy.Reactivation of a large group’s chosen trauma and an entitlement ideologylinked to it lead to “time collapse.” Feelings, thoughts, wishes and fearsstimulated by the shared reactivation of the chosen trauma and theentitlement ideology collapse into perceptions and affects about a currentinternational conflict and magnified dangers. When Slobodan Miloševićand his associates reactivated the Serbian chosen trauma and the Serbianentitlement ideology it created a time collapse that led to genocidal actsin Europe at the end of the twentieth century.Imagine that a serial killer such as Jack the Ripper or Ted Bundy ismurdering his victims by strangling them with a red scarf. Also imagine thatthis serial killer is caught, tried and put away. What happens to his murderweapon, the red scarf? It stays in a dusty box in the basement of a court orpolice building as evidence used during the trial. In short, in the future noone else will use this scarf as a tool for murdering people. Let us go back toMilošević. He died on March 11, 2006 while on trial because the UnitedNations considered him responsible for mass murder, among other things.His “red scarf” was a chosen trauma and an entitlement ideology. Sincehis “red scarf” belonged to a large group and not to one lone individual,is it possible to use it again in the future? Milošević was not the first personto inflame the mental representations of the Battle of Kosovo and PrinceLazar. For example, on June 28, 1914, during an anniversary of the Battleof Kosovo, a Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke FrancisFerdinand of Austria-Hungary (Austria-Hungary had replaced the OttomanEmpire as the “oppressor” of the Serbs) and his pregnant wife in Sarajevo,thereby beginning World War I.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PROMOTE PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCEBETWEEN FORMER “ENEMY” GROUPS WITHIN ONE STATE OR

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BETWEEN STATES AND MAINTAIN SOCIETAL WELL-BEING?Expressions of apology and corresponding feelings of forgiveness have not alwaysbeen followed by positive outcomes. Some such apologies were experienced asgenuine, while others were perceived as empty gestures. The arts of apologyand forgiveness should not be considered as having magical diplomatic andpolitical consequences. Furthermore, the concepts of apology and forgivenesscannot be fully understood without considering involuntary human conditions:mourning over losing people, possessions, land, prestige, honor, and so on.The mourning process means going over the images of lost persons andthings, with associated feelings, hundreds of times until the reality of the lossis genuinely accepted and emotions – ranging from sadness to fury to survivalguilt – are tamed. Forgiveness and societal well-being will be possible whensocietal mourning takes place or is tamed and mental representations of lostpersons and things become futureless but valued memories. Arts, movies,poems, novels, or conferences help to open the societal mourning process.Another typical way that a large group deals with mourning is to buildmonuments or memorials related to the massive trauma or to their ancestors’massive trauma at the hands of others that help the traumatized society tomourn (Volkan, 2006b).Attempting to understand large groups is a daunting task, perhaps a grandioseeffort to manage the unmanageable (Shapiro & Carr, 2006). As I have learnedmore and more about various aspects of large-group psychology during the lastthree decades, I have come to a conclusion that the above statement is correct.Nonetheless, I also realize that some seemingly very difficult large-groupconflicts can be managed in a peaceful way if we apply psychoanalyticallyinformed diplomatic strategies to them. My colleagues and I from the Universityof Virginia’s Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI)(closed in 2005) developed such strategies that take into consideration thepsychology of large-group identity. Among them is an unofficial diplomaticmethodology that we named the Tree Model that takes years to be effective(described in details elsewhere [Volkan 1988, 2006a]). The root, trunk, andbranches of a tree represent the three phases of this model.During the first phase, which includes in-depth psychoanalytically informedinterviews with a wide range of the two opposing large groups’ members, thefacilitating team (composed of psychoanalysts, historians, political scientists,others from different disciplines and former high-level diplomats) begins tounderstand the main conscious as well as unconscious aspects of the relationshipbetween opposing large groups and the surrounding situation to be addressed.During the second phase, psychopolitical dialogues between the same 15 to 20influential representatives (legislators, ambassadors, government officials, wellknownscholars, or other public figures) of opposing large groups under thedirection of the psychoanalytically informed facilitating team take place in aseries of multi-day meetings over several years. There are plenary sessions, butmost of the work is done in small groups led by members of the facilitating team.The participants from the opposing large groups become spokespersons for theirtribal, ethnic, national, religious or ideological large groups.When two large groups are in conflict, the enemy is obviously real, but it isalso fantasized. If participants can differentiate their fantasized dangers from

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the current issues, then negotiations and steps towards peace can become morerealistic. Psychopolitical dialogues become a process in which historicalgrievances are aired; perceptions, fears, and attitudes are articulated; and previouslyhidden psychological obstacles to reconciliation or change rise to thesurface. Their aim is not to erase the images of past historical events and differencesin large-group identity and culture, but rather to detoxify the relationshipso that differences do not lead to renewed violence.Political and diplomatic efforts to find peaceful co-existence betweenenemies provoke shared, felt or hidden anxiety, and therefore shared psychologicalobstacles against peaceful solutions because they threaten existing largegroupidentities, despite the fact that at times the population may appear tofavor such changes. As a way of handling the opposing large groups’ anxiety,the facilitating team pays attention to two basic principles that govern theinteractions between enemies in acute conflict:1. Two opposing large groups need to maintain their identities as distinct fromeach other (principle of non-sameness).2. Two opposing large groups need to maintain an unambiguous psychologicalborder between them. If a political border exists between the enemies, itbecomes highly psychological.Both principles relate to the fact that people in one large group have atendency to externalize, project, and displace certain unwanted elements ontothe other. Imagine “mud” is thrown onto the “other’s” huge tent’s canvas, andit sometimes leaves a “stain” as I described above. There is, however, alsoanxiety that the “mud” could be hurled right back at the sender. The twoprinciples exist to prevent the “mud” from coming back, thus helping each side’slarge-group identity remain cohesive.Although antagonistic large groups usually have major differences inreligion, language and historical or mythological backgrounds, “minor differences”between antagonists can become major problems that lead to deadlyconsequences. Much earlier Freud (1921, 1930) noted minor differencesamong small and large groups, but did not study their sometimes deadlyconsequences in international relations (Horowitz, 1985; Volkan, 1997).When large groups regress, any signal of similarity is perceived, often unconsciously,as unacceptable; minor differences therefore become elevated togreat importance to protect non-sameness. The act of paying attention todifferences, including minor ones, between two large groups in conflict can beseen as a way of shoring up the psychological border between the two largegroups’ identities. This differentiation helps lessen each group’s anxiety,since, with the psychological border in place, a clear distinction betweenthe two large groups is maintained, diminishing the anxiety that one largegroup’s identity will become diluted or lost in the “other’s” identity. This emphasisdifferentiates this facilitating team’s strategy from many other peacemakingpersons’ or teams’ insistence that in order to make peace theopposing groups are required to be friendly and that enemies need to “love”each other in order to make peace.During psychopolitical dialogues the participants from the opposing large

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groups may suddenly experience a rapprochement. This closeness is thenfollowed by a sudden withdrawal from one another and then again by closeness– coming together and then pulling apart like an accordion. Denying andaccepting derivatives of aggression within the participants toward the “enemy”large group, even when they are hidden, and attempts to protect large-groupidentities underlie this behavior. Effective discussion of real-world issues cannottake place unless one allows the “accordion playing” to continue for a while sothat the swing in sentiments can be replaced by more secure feelings aboutparticipants’ large-group identities.It will be sufficient to state that during the psychopolitical dialogues, thefacilitating team pays full attention to large-group identity issues mentionedearlier in this paper. It takes into consideration the importance of threats againstlarge-group identity, it notices the importance of the shared mental representationsof the large-groups’ histories, and includes the impact of transgenerationaltransmission of trauma, images of past historical events, as well as time collapse.One crucial aim of the psychopolitical dialogues is to establish a “time expansion”between the more recent problems and the past ones belonging to theancestors so that more realistic negotiations about current issues can take place.This is done by not forgetting or denying ancestors’ traumas, but by understandingand feeling how the mental representations of such traumas have becomelarge-group identity markers.The facilitating team seeks to spread the insights gained to the broaderpopulation through concrete programs that promote peaceful strategies andco-existence. In order for the gained insights to have an impact on socialand political policy as well as on the populace at large, the final phase requiresthe collaborative development of concrete actions, programs, legal changesand institutions. What is learned is operationalized so that more peaceful coexistencecan be achieved.

LAST REMARKSAfter immersing himself in training and working in psychoanalytical psychotherapywith patients for many years, Lord John Alderdice became directlyinvolved in political life, the praxis of conflict resolution from a psychoanalyticalperspective, and played a significant role in taming communal violence inNorthern Ireland. He states: “Whatever the dangers of being seduced intoacting out the transference in the process of such work, taking psychoanalysisoff the couch and around the conference table is not necessarily in and of itselfa form [of] acting out … It is, rather, a way of facing the reality of personal andcommunal violence, confronting the ravages of the decent into chaos anddeath and transforming aggression into creation of better communal relationships”(Alderdice, 2010, p. 31). We can make similar statements aboutinternational relationships. I hope that psychoanalysts and psychoanalyticallyoriented clinicians will continue to develop large-group psychology in its ownright, become involved in interdisciplinary initiatives, provide information onlarge-group identity and related concepts that can be used by diplomats andother authorities and make efforts for large groups’ psychological well-being.

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