PSYCHOANALYSIS IN A HOLY LAND

This book has an almost utopian subtitle in light of the recent events in the Middle East: “Can psychoanalysts contribute to the Palestinian-Israeli dialogue?”. This crucial question seems, after what 7th October entailed for both sides of the conflict, to be somewhat outdated since the conflict has seen a dehumanizing escalation. Of course this is not a book of psycho-politics and/or of history of such a conflict, although it wants to touch on some questions regarding the contraposition of the historical narratives between the two sides. The opposition of Shoah versus Nakba constitutes the polarization of two sets of conflicting collective narratives and memories.Vamik Volkan in his chapter emphasizes the importance of the psychological borders and of the demand for ‘sameness’ for the antagonistic large groups: during a war to maintain at any cost the two principles, sameness and psychological borders, the failure of diplomacy to promote negotiations between the two antagonistic large groups in order to stop fighting can be seen.Merav Roth’s chapter in this book was written in the aftermath of the October 7 attack, in a truly uncommon effort to conjugate a rigorous ‘clinical discipline’, to face the horror and unspeakable trauma and to favour resilience, with the psychoanalyst’s unwavering faith in the highest possible human, spiritual, moral values.While Roth provides ten clear instruments to intervene in the face of acute trauma and to promote resilience, Abramovitch’s contribution deals with the effects on the psychoanalytic work of the intergenerational transmission of collective traumas.Maria Patrizia Salatiello, to whom the present book is dedicated, in her chapter “Gaza” shows how her "gaze upon Gaza was full of affection, of esteem for this suffering people, for these children who saw what no child, and I believe no human being should ever experience" (as Ambra Cusin writes in the Afterword). Read more