Israel–Palestine: Unresolved group trauma is an obstacle for peace

Abstract

This article explores key aspects of man-made human suffering from a psychoanalytic, group-analytic and group attachment standpoint. It postulates that, when unresolved individual and group trauma remains untreated, it can be a fuel for vicious cycles of hatred, terror and destruction. In order to explore this, the article focuses on the intractable Israel–Palestine conflict; it invites the reader to reflect on the Jewish Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba and their role in the perpetuation of the ongoing conflict. It includes a clinical case study of a Holocaust survivor who benefited from combined individual and group psychotherapy and became able to come to terms with her traumatic past. The aim of the present research is to encourage working harder for peace, endeavouring to achieve a deeper understanding of unconscious individual and group psychological defence mechanisms in the clinical setting as well as the sociopolitical context.

Keywords

man-made human suffering war terror unresolved trauma Holocaust Nakba colonialism racism dispossession

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