A Professional Trajectory from Madness through Mourning to Mutuality (festschrift article)

Allow me to begin with a question, about a man whose travels and associations are replete with fascinating characters, including presidents, prime ministers, opposition leaders, lords of the realm, writers, journalists, and poets. If we were not producing this Festschrift for Vamık Volkan but were making a blockbuster movie

Page 162

about his life, who would we select as its director? My choice would be either David Lean or Robert Altman. Lean, who directed movies such as Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr Zhivago (1965), Ryan’s Daughter (1970), and A Passage to India (1984), had a penchant for picking a panoramic geo-historical canvas as a backdrop for unraveling a complex protagonist’s psychic life. Viewers left his movies better informed about the world, moved, entertained, and frankly, a bit humbled. Altman, in contrast, kept himself restricted to one locale—a city (Nashville, 1975), or even an event (A Wedding, 1978)—but packed the story with a huge number of characters. A true master of ensemble-based and multi-perspectival storytelling, Altman offered us poignant—even though “super-sized”—collages of human dismay. We came out of the cinema hall wondering about human nature and flooded with memories of our interactions with family and friends. Lean was like an exciting father, Altman like a wise mother. Either of them would be suitable choices for adapting the story of Vamık Volkan’s life to the medium of celluloid images. If we could pull a real stunt (forget the fact that both directors are now deceased), we would have the two great craftsmen collaborate on the project.

Such thinking is lent credence by the vast territory—nosological, conceptual, technical, and geopolitical—that Vamık Volkan covered. His professional life in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and psychoanalytically-informed ethnic conflict resolution has gone through many phases. Three benchmarks stand out, however.

First, his early work on the in-depth understanding and treatment of borderline, narcissistic, and schizophrenic patients. His first book, Primitive Internalized Object Relations (1976), spelled out the metapsychological underpinnings and a later book, Six Steps in the Treatment of Borderline Personality Organization (1988) operationalized the technique.

The second benchmark in Volkan’s distinguished career is his work on normal and pathological mourning. Beginning with papers written alone and with colleagues—including “Known Object Loss, Disturbance in Reality Testing, and ‘Re-grief’ Work As a Method of Brief Psychotherapy” (Volkan & Showalter, 1968, in Psychoanalytic Quarterly 42, pp. 358-374); “Typical Findings in Pathological Grief” (Volkan, 1970, in Psychoanalytic Quarterly 44,

Page 163

pp. 231-250); “The Linking Objects of Pathological Mourners” (Volkan, 1972, in Archives of General Psychiatry 27, pp. 215-221); and “The Treatment of Established Pathological Mourners” (Volkan & Josephthal, 1980, in Specialized Techniques and Psychotherapy, eds. T.B. Karasu and L. Bellak, pp. 118-142)—this line of work culminated in his widely-read book, Linking Objects and Linking Phenomena (1981). Deftly unmasking the role of inanimate objects in the manifestation and treatment of established pathological mourning, Volkan made truly novel contributions to this realm of psychopathology.

The third benchmark, which heralded the final consolidation of his professional identity, was the 1988 publication of The Need to Have Enemies and Allies. Though Volkan remained clinically involved for many subsequent years, the door he had opened for himself by writing this book led to a long academic corridor and then to a glittering promenade of contributions on ethnic identity, international conflict, Track II Diplomacy, and, ultimately, large group psychology. In a series of books, Bloodlines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism (1997), Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crises and Terror (2004), and Killing in the Name of Identity: A Study of Bloody Conflicts (2006), to name a few, Volkan painstakingly distinguished his approach to how the large groups “think” from the narrow anthropomorphization of social and political matters by early psychoanalysis (especially Freud, 1921). He introduced lasting concepts like “chosen glories,” “chosen traumas,” “accordion phenomenon,” “ethnic tent,” “the tree model,” and so on, to enunciate, embody, and encode the hitherto unrecognized nuances of large-group psychology. Volkan also spearheaded the GAP’s group on international relations, which resulted in a co-authored monograph, “Leaders and decision making” (Volkan et al., 1998, in Mind and Human Interaction 9, pp. 130-181). In addition, he co-authored highly respected psychobiographies of Kemal Atatürk, The Immortal Atatürk (Volkan and Itzkowitz, 1984), and Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography (Volkan et al., 2001).

Far from being an armchair specialist, Volkan traveled to areas of ethnic strife including Albania, Azerbaijan, Israel, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, and many similar “hot-spots” (his term). There, he

Page 164

worked—and continues to work—shoulder-to-shoulder with the local mental health professionals as well as the regional political leaders. Not surprisingly, he was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace, receiving support from dignitaries of over 25 nations.

But let this salutation not be a mere recitation of his professional achievements, however great these might be (and, they indeed are). Volkan’s talents and skills far exceed writing, speaking, and helping resolve political conflicts. His additional strengths include his capacities as teacher, mentor, and inspiring agent for younger generations of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. I myself have been the beneficiary of his clinical supervision and can attest to the sublime blend of his firm guidance and incisive insights on the one hand, and patient listening and empathy on the other.

Yet another way he helped me was to encourage me and guide me, as I was taking my first steps of putting my own ideas in writing. Such facilitation of individuation is the true hallmark of what Erik Erikson (1950) has called “generativity.” Volkan surely is a generative man. He is also a man with friends across the globe: in the United States, in Turkey, in Finland, in Israel, in Germany, and well beyond. Wherever he has gone, and whomever he has touched, this kind, warm-hearted, ambitious and grand man has left an indelible mark. His life is replete with fascinating characters, including presidents, prime ministers, opposition leaders, writers, journalists, and poets. Trust me, David Lean and Robert Altman would outbid each other to tell his story to the world!

Page 165