A Life in the Service of Dialogue

The psychoanalyst Vamık Volkan speaks about the failure of diplomacy since the Freudian era in writing on topics relevant to diplomacy and political violence, saying that their contributions have been primarily theoretical, thus not offering much that is of practical use to politicians and diplomats. Consequently, diplomats often focus on Realpolitik, ignoring the impact of psychological forces, especially subconscious ones. It is his great achievement to have developed concepts enabling the application of psychoanalytic individual and group psychology to political diplomacy and Realpolitik. The conceptual and practical formulation of a political psychology is an essential element in his life’s work. With it, Volkan created a set of psychopolitical tools that can help rival groups to engage successfully in peace negotiations with one another.

We met Vamık Volkan in 1995. At that time in the German

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public sphere, there was hardly any societal exchange to address the psychological consequences of the Third Reich. The transfer of unreflected Holocaust experience from one generation to the next was given scarce attention, even among psychoanalysts. In most of German society, silence prevailed in matters relating to the Holocaust. This prompted a group of Jewish and non-Jewish Germans to form an interdisciplinary association known today as the Study Group on Intergenerational Consequences of the Holocaust, formerly PAKH. Their aim was to study the mechanisms sustaining the transgenerational transmission of traumatic experiences and blame and to overcome the legacy of speechlessness.

How could the children of perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust, opposed in silent enmity, begin to communicate with one another? Volkan, as supervisor, accompanied and supported the association’s beginnings. He came to our aid on this difficult German topic of the utmost importance, a subject that—on first sight—is elusive and imperceptible. We need to cope with it constantly, but only occasionally take conscious notice of doing so.

Since the early 1990s, many people in Germany have been dealing actively with the subject, and many publications have addressed it: biographies, non-fiction, novels, radio dramas, and films. Still, the underlying destructive mechanisms remain in effect and— like wicked fairies—they have many faces. Daily, we encounter news items about violent clashes between ethnic groups, and the dialogue between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans collapses over seemingly negligible issues. The unconscious dynamic is that powerful, and so, it is all the more relevant and inspiring that Vamık Volkan aims at the construction of a successful dialogue in his interventions in trouble spots around the world.

When PAKH was formed in 1995, the founders soon realized, with Volkan’s help, that coping with the German past— especially with the Holocaust—requires fulfilling two conditions. You have to personally confront your own inner images of history, understand what has shaped your introjections, and how they affect you. At the same time, you have to face up to members of the opposing ethnic group: non-Jewish Germans have to cope with Jews, and victims with perpetrators.

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It was Vamık Volkan who facilitated this process in our group and, as a result, we arranged in 1998 a symposium called “The End of Speechlessness?” Volkan describes the intense and complex facilitating process of PAKH in the publication on the symposium and in his book The Third Reich in the Unconscious.

Throughout the 18 years of PAKH’s existence, Volkan has fulfilled an essential role as consultant for the further development of the association. Over time, he also has become our mentor and friend. Without his profound professional knowledge, theoretical insight, and empathetic guidance, PAKH could never have developed into what it is today. We feel very privileged to have him as an honorary member of PAKH.

His theory has been seminal for the group’s practical and conceptual approach. The application large-group identity as distinct from individual core identity has helped us, during the progress of our work, to proceed in a constructive dialogue with one another. The concept of “chosen trauma” enabled a deeper comprehension of the subconscious mechanisms involved in transgenerational transmission, at the same time suggesting helpful ways of dealing with them. It posits that a serious traumatization perpetrated by one large group upon another and associated with feelings of humiliation and helplessness can (subconsciously) become, across generations, a “marker” of their large-group identity. Thus it forms a “reservoir” for hostile feelings and resentments that, if reactivated, can unfold their destructive power even after several generations. Volkan described the psychological process underlying the phenomenon in which large groups can take revenge on other groups for humiliation or injustice imposed generations earlier. The fateful spiral of humiliating slight, vengeance, and retaliation can be maintained over generations if this destructive dynamic is not recognized and the descendants do not find a means of entering into a constructive dialogue that overcomes the initial trauma and, with it, the hostilities it has engendered.

In this manner, the “chosen trauma” can become an unacknowledged psychological source of ongoing enmity and armed conflicts between national, ethnic or religious groups. PAKH attempted, in applying this concept, to develop an open form of dialogue between descendants of survivors and descendants of perpe-

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trators of the Holocaust—a dialogue capable of overcoming the destructive power of transgenerational legacies. The aim is to prevent the Holocaust from becoming a “chosen trauma” harboring explosive potential over generations and allowing the emergence of tomorrow’s perpetrators from the midst of yesterday’s victims.

Vamık Volkan recognized more clearly than anyone else the significance of the psychology of large groups and its central importance for overcoming conflicts and restoring peace between rival groups. In order to create a lasting peace, it is necessary to take into account—in addition to political and social aspects—the psychology of human behavior, particularly of large groups. If peace negotiations are to be successful, it is essential to comprehend the conscious and subconscious feelings experienced by the political leaders of the hostile opposing groups during their exchange: the psychological states of the leaders and the large groups they represent are decisive for the outcome, determining whether the negotiations lead to peace or to further armed conflicts. In Volkan’s words, “…we need to look at what it is that motivates the leaders of opposing large groups, above and beyond their individualized psychologies, in their international relations that leads to either peaceful or destructive massive movements.”

In the course of the last four decades, Vamık Volkan has been active in countless crisis regions of the world and has brought together, in unofficial diplomatic meetings, influential representatives of large groups hostile to one another, among them Arabs and Israelis, Americans and Soviets, Russians and Estonians, Serbs and Croatians, Turks and Greeks, and Turks and Armenians. Together with the psychiatrist Lord John Alderdice, the former president of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, he brought together major representatives of the Western world, America and Europe, with representatives of Islamic countries such as Iran, Turkey, Jordan, and the Arab Emirates as well as representatives of Israel, Russia, and India for an exchange aimed at understanding and overcoming the worldwide consequences of the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, particularly with respect to the division between the Islamic world and the West.

With Lord Alderdice and Robi Friedman, in 2007, Volkan

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founded the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI), aimed at comprehending the effects of past trauma on current political efforts and promoting dialogue between representatives of large groups opposed in enmity to one another. Through his many books and psychopolitical activities around the world, he has not only called attention to the significance of the subconscious psychodynamic context for political efforts toward peace between hostile groups or nations, he has also implemented peace negotiations on the practical level.

It is his incomparable achievement to have developed a theoretically sound and practically oriented psychology of large groups and to have integrated it into his untiring efforts for peace in diverse crisis regions of the world. Furthermore, with his “tree model” for facilitating psychopolitical dialogue between opposing large groups, he has created a valuable tool based on psychological/ psychoanalytic insights and suited for practical application in the “unofficial diplomacy” of peace initiatives.

Vamık Volkan has dedicated his life to the service of peace and dialogue. Fittingly, he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times.

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