Mira Erlich-Ginor (Memo)

Overcoming historical trauma and the prospects for peace

Where do I speak from?

The background from which I am approaching this topic is multi-layered: it rests on my theory and practice as a psychoanalyst; my theory and practice as a group relations practitioner, working with small and large groups; my work for over 30 years with transgenerational transmission of WWII trauma of second and third-generation victims and perpetrators, Jews, Israelis, Germans and Palestinians.

Since the October 7 massacre, I have worked with Israeli victims − individuals, groups and the helping systems.

I also speak from the background of taking part in the demonstration movement that started in January 2023 as a protest against the attempted ‘judiciary reform’ or the move to totalitarianism, which since October 7 has been demanding to free the hostages, to sign a cease-fire agreement and to topple the government.

I am speaking from my take on the reality of the Israeli situation, which is that it is at the lowest points in its history in terms of being dragged, by the October 7 massacre, to an ever-growing extreme split in the society, where one fraction’s wish fulfillment is the other’s nightmare, dragged into a cycle of depression and aggression, as victims, perpetrators and bystanders. The amplitudes of fluctuations from omnipotence to impotence reach record highs. Half of the country is mourning the loss of its values and its cherished self-image while grieving for immense human losses. Many are too absorbed in their own suffering, unable to see the human suffering of the Gazans.

The most basic human ethical stance has been attacked. Parts of ourselves are constantly under attack.

In what follows, I will try to differentiate between my wishful thinking as an engaged citizen and my professional view, which is a challenge when the topic is so emotional. Otherwise, the differentiation may be doomed to fail.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

A psychoanalytic perspective on societal issues focuses on the individual and the collective emotional, irrational and unconscious levels of mind. Unconscious motivations may have long-lasting and devastating results, and they must be acknowledged. From the psychoanalytic perspective, we can see both positive steps forward and obstacles toward peace.

Bringing a psychoanalytic perspective to a societal issue (‘socially relevant psychoanalysis’) entails two moves: First, from the historical/social/political aspects to the psychological aspect (these demarcation lines are admittedly blurred).

The second move is from the personal mind to the collective mind, from understanding and treating the individual in the confines of the consulting room to the arena of large groups (tribes, nations, countries), including their political mental health and pathologies.

The societal application of psychoanalytic thinking is not a well-trodden path. Yet, society’s malaise is too deep and wide to be ignored by a discipline that aims to understand human motivations and offer transformation. In the words of Hanna Segal, a Jewish-Polish-British psychoanalyst:

“I think we have a specific contribution to make. We are cognizant of the psychic mechanisms of denial, projection, magical thinking, etc. We should be able to contribute something to the overcoming of apathy and self-deception in ourselves and others.

We psychoanalysts who believe in the power of words and the therapeutic effect of verbalizing truth must not be silent.” (H. Segal)

This effort is our ethical obligation.

As with the individual, we can detect a spectrum in collectives from primitive to complex and developed minds. The primitive mind (‘schizo-paranoid position’ in Kleinian terms) is characterised by a black-and-white experience characterised by mechanisms of splitting and projection. Unacceptable drives, feelings and aggressive desires are projected onto ‘the enemy’, whether real or imagined, and thus can be denied within oneself. The ‘enemy’ is dehumanised and, as such, maltreating him does not challenge my humanity. There is always a ‘handy’ Other who can be the recipient of the unbearable elements of the non-acceptable me.

States of stress in general, and a state of war in particular, are fertile soil for regression from a more complex stance and appreciation (Kleinian ‘depressive position’) to the primitive state of mind (‘schizo-paranoid position’). Instincts and phantasies rather than rational thinking take over. The ‘jungle law’ and the fight for survival become the guidelines and the compass: the mentality of ‘I versus They’ prevails; there is no place inside me for the suffering of the ‘not-me’, of the enemy, and little or no empathy.

There is a well-known conflation of helplessness, terror and omnipotence − the helplessness and omnipotence increasing one another in a vicious cycle. This helplessness, which lies at the root of our apathy, is partly inevitable as we are faced with a horrifyingly threatening danger. But partly, it is self-induced and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Confronted with the terror of the powers of destructiveness, we divest ourselves from our responsibilities by denial, projection and fragmentation. The ‘enemy’ is a fluid definition: it can be whoever I have a conflict with, whoever is defined as a ‘not-me’. It is easier when the enemy is clearly defined, be it Hamas or the Palestinians. The not-me can also be part of my country: the ‘Lefties’ who want to end the war, the ‘Kaplanists’ who demonstrate for democracy, or the ‘settlers’ who are committing atrocities and are pulling the government in a direction I disagree with.

‘‘It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness’’ (p. 114). … communities ‘with adjoining territories’ such as the Spaniards and the Portuguese, the North Germans and the South Germans, or the English and Scotch, are engaged in feuds and ridicule each other. The narcissism of minor differences ‘is a convenient and relatively harmless satisfaction of the inclination to aggression, by means of which cohesion between the members of the community is made easier.’’’ (Freud, 1917)

In this state of mind, the ‘other’ is an undifferentiated mass of badness, while the ‘we’ is an undifferentiated mass of goodness.

Complex and nuanced reality is denied by this lack of differentiation and the lumping of ‘us’ and ‘them’ into an undifferentiated mass. Thus, it is also an attack on reality and on truth. In this state of mind, all Palestinians are bad (there is no difference between Hamas, a murderous terrorist organisation that committed barbaric acts, and Palestinian women and children); all Israelis are good, hence there is no problem or cognitive dissonance with thousands of children killed in Gaza, as “they will grow to become Hamas or Nukhba”.

The future is in the present, time collapses. Humanity is lost, and compassion is not accessible and irrelevant.

Freud was pessimistic about human nature in relation to war and peace. In his correspondence with Einstein (Why War? 1932), he concludes with a more optimistic statement that culture will curb human aggression: “Whatever fosters the growth of civilization works at the same time against war” (p. 215). Years earlier, the horrors of WWI made him rethink his theory and introduce the ‘death instinct’ to explain human beings’ inherent aggression and murderousness (Freud 1915).

Recent years seem to provide more evidence for the pessimistic point of view rather than the optimistic one − with the rise of transnational terrorism, religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism, and deepening racial and ethnic divisions and violent political conflict throughout the world. Intractable local violent political conflicts, like the Israeli-Palestinian one, have reached a point of urgency that requires solutions.

Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma The past is never dead; it’s not even past.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.” (William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun)

The psychoanalytic mechanism at work when dealing with ‘historical trauma’ is the ‘transgenerational transmission of trauma׳ − a trauma of the past that is transmitted across generations.

Trauma in the individual is defined not by an objective catastrophe but by its effect on the individual. Thus, two people exposed to the same event can react entirely differently, as is evident in the life stories of Holocaust survivors.

A collective trauma can be defined as a past event that became part of the collective’s DNA, ethos, legacy and identity. The trauma is transmitted transgenerationally and is active in the collective mind in ways not necessarily conscious or acknowledged.

The Holocaust is a trauma of this magnitude, and so is apartheid in South Africa, the Rwanda genocide, slavery for the USA and, unfortunately, many other man-made atrocities that are scars that nations carry for generations.

It is important to make a distinction between the ever-present past that lives in the memory and souls of the present generation, related to past trauma that is finished, and a situation in which the trauma that started in the past is ongoing, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is at one and the same time a historical trauma, an ongoing trauma and a cumulative trauma.

Transgenerational transmission of trauma is resistant to change; it becomes part of the national identity and a national defense mechanism (“Haven’t the Jewish people suffered enough?” so now they are entitled to everything, is a well-known Israeli joke).

Even if the trauma is mitigated and the grip on the nation’s soul is weakened, allowing for a more complex realistic stance, the potential of regressing to the primitive state of mind is always present and kicks-in in situations of stress and perceived or real existential threats.

Change is not impossible, but the burns, scars and sensitivities must be considered.

There are two main ways to change. The dramatic one is when courageous leaders mobilise hope and change the course of history. Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem was an example of this track. In the absence of courageous formal leaders, there is ‘track 2’: grass-roots leadership that works not from the top down but horizontally to meet and work on the ‘detoxification’ of past enemies.

Both tracks are built on the wish for a better life (‘life instinct’) and on the possibility of being in a mature state of mind. The ‘enemy’ (who arouses fear and the need to destroy it) must change from a ‘demon’ to an enemy one can talk to and make peace with; it has to be humanised (ghost to be changed to human).

Track 2 programmes

A conference like the one we have been invited to is a perfect example of ‘track 2’. but there are more going on, some examples:

• • Standing Together is a grassroots movement mobilising Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel against the occupation and for peace, equality and social justice.
  • The Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF) is a joint Israeli-Palestinian organisation of over 700 families.
  • Tag Meir fights against settlers’ atrocities.

• Palestinian-Israel Journal

PCCA: the work of Partners for Confronting Collective Atrocities, my organisation, is another example.

The Role of Leadership

Leaders, especially charismatic leaders, play a prominent role. They are invested by the best and worst of their people. Depending on the leader’s toxicity or benevolence, they can lead in a constructive or destructive way. Narcissistic charismatic leaders know how to talk to and incite the primitive mind, inspiring the cycle of fear and retaliatory phantasies and actions.

Leaders can be invested with hope, ego ideals, even messianic wishes, as well as with fears, annihilation anxiety and aggression. They can stir up archaic objects or mobilise the mature, rational self with hope and connectedness, which can lead to giving up utopian ‘I want it all’ immature wishes.

Those old enough to remember it experienced a strong emotional reaction when Anwar Sadat came to Israel on November 19, 1977. I remember how we took our small children late at night to applaud him when his motorcade arrived in Jerusalem. Sadat, in Israel’s Knesset, referred to “a psychological wall accounting for 70 percent of the problems between Arabs and Israelis”. Two years later, Sadat, Begin and Jimi Karter signed a peace treaty in the White House. The wall was broken for a while.

The Effect of Being Part of a Large Group in Regressive States

Members of society invest parts of themselves in their leaders and in the society as a whole. There is a seduction in belonging to a large group; it can work as a ‘breast-mother’ who will repair narcissistic injuries or as the primal omnipotent father who will protect me.

Under certain circumstances, individuals subsume their personal identities and hold fast to large-group identity over their individual identity openly or in hidden ways to find hope, comfort, or a ‘promised land’.

When the individual superego is vested in a group superego, we can guiltlessly perpetrate horrors that we couldn’t bear in our individual existence. This can explain the phenomenon of dehumanisation we encounter in such group practices as engaging in atrocities that we would see in an individual only in the psychotic or the criminal psychopath. There is a submission to the group that can tyrannise its members.

Defying one’s group requires mobilising a sense of self capable of resisting the regressive pull of following the leader or the group.

When such mechanisms get out of hand, the group, instead of containing psychotic functioning, enacts them in practice and creates irrational behavior such as war and genocide. This defines a regressed group as something that is prone to happen in states of emergency or war.

Empathy for Your Enemy at Times of War, “My Poor Come First” (Charity Begins at Home)

What is mobilised in enmity?

Since the massacre of October 7 and the war that ensued, with tens of thousands of people killed in Gaza, cities destroyed and people living under terrible circumstances, it was remarkable to notice the lack of concern and empathy in Israel towards the catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza. The media colluded in not bringing images and stories of the devastation (in a parallel way that they took ‘responsibility’ in mitigating the images of the inflicted atrocities of the 7.10, and it took Biden’s coming to Israel to share the horrors).

People who declare themselves liberals and humanistic are turning a blind eye and a hardened heart toward the misery in Gaza. Pain and empathy are channelled to the hostages: they are people with names, histories and families, we know them, they are ‘us’. Their fate touched our hearts. No room is left for the suffering of those whom we turn faceless, nameless, invisible, mere numbers.

This psychic state has a heavy psychological price. The split that enables a hardened heart toward the Gazan will eventually take over and be directed toward ‘them in us’.

Netanyahu, a master in creating splits and hatred, calls anyone not aligned with his policy a collaborator with Hamas.

Obstacles To a New Narrative of Peace Now

I am trying to differentiate between my wishful thinking (which is that a solution is possible, and its structure is clear: a two-state solution) and my sober evaluation of whether, under the present circumstances, a solution to end the cycles of fear, aggression and death is possible at all. What transformations are possible at the peak of suffering, pain, hate and aggression when all parties are at present in regressive mental states, actually fighting for their life?

At the moment, any move toward peace runs counter to the mainstream. Many people who believed and preached for the two-state solution are rethinking and are not sure that there can ever be peace or trust between Israelis and Palestinians.

Perhaps Israel’s current low point will enable the renunciation of utopian dreams and recognition of the realistic need for concessions.

There may be a realisation of the toll on our wellbeing that hatred and murderousness, the lack of humanity and the loss of moral values is taking; that we are destroying parts of ourselves through and by turning off our humane concerns by agreeing to go along with a lack of differentiation between the real enemy (Hamas, terrorists) and the rest of the population. This lack of differentiation then becomes a source of evil within ourselves.

If so, what may be the conditions for achieving peace in the Middle East?

Taking responsibility and recognising the real history is necessary for any move toward peace. Acknowledging the past is a way out of the compulsion to repeat, which is the result of accumulated trauma and the option to choose differently.

The prospect for peace requires detoxifying and humanising the ‘enemy’, taking responsibility for one’s part in the suffering, and acknowledging the suffering of the other party (these principles were at work in the TRC).

In the Israeli-Palestinian bloody conflict, insisting on not acknowledging the pain and trauma of the Nakba is an example of avoiding taking responsibility and acknowledging the suffering of the other.

Another precondition is the possibility of a shared narrative and dream of hope in each society. At the moment, Israeli society is split. A ‘miracle’ for one part of society (e.g., creating new settlements in Gaza) is a sheer disaster for the other part. When there is no room for a shared narrative, can there be a shared dream of a better future? Can there ever be a shared narrative?

Don’t wait till the trauma is over.

A precondition for working through a trauma is usually that it must be over, and you can work through it from a safe place. But as the current conflict will last years, there is no point in waiting until the ‘day after,’ and we must start working from the low point that we are at. Since the barbaric Hamas attack on October 7, a new layer to the cycle of defeat, violence, hatred and mistrust began − a new layer of trauma on top of the previous ones. No need for Holocaust imagery (striped cloth of emaciated ghost-like people in concentration camps, hiding in barns and hiding rooms) to express utter horror; images of people holding on to door handles in their ‘sheltered rooms’, savaged by Nukhba terrorists, the image of utter horror on a mother’s face holding her two red-haired children, images of burned children, of raped young women, of entire families shot in their pyjamas, of shot people lying in the path of a kibbutz, the horror on the face of a young woman kidnapped on a motorcycle, or naked young women lying on a pickup truck, disgraced and jeered at are going to accompany us for decades: “With them, you want to make peace???? With such savages???? There is no one to make peace with, only to avenge and destroy: ‘total victory’.”

Victory over whom? On both the real and the imaginary existential threat.

The wishful thinking that Palestinians will disappear in one way or another has changed from fantasy to plan.

There is a parallel fear and hatred, a feeling of revenge, and a wish for Israel to disappear on the part of the Palestinians.

We are in the midst of creating a trauma. What will signal the end of it and the beginning of recovery?

Recovery may take ages, but as neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will disappear, we have to live together. For this to happen, a long recovery has to take place − a recovery in which detoxification must occur, the other side must be humanised, and threats and fears must be relaxed along with a process of de-radicalisation in the upbringing of the young generation.

The seeming absence of leadership at this time suggests that the citizens must do the work (very much like the numerous social initiatives that sprang up in the wake of October 7).

This movement will be fuelled by life forces, by the realisation that we are at a dead end, by giving up impossible wishes for realistic aims, and by mutually acknowledging the other side.

Despite the temptation to belong to an imaginary ‘togetherness’ that leads to a regressive state of mind, there are individuals and groups that keep the complex state of mind and search for solutions.

A process of peace work has to happen now, during the trauma, as the nature of this conflict is that we do not have the luxury of waiting for the ‘day after’.

The day after is now.