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THE PSYCHODRAMA OF MANKIND. IS IT REALLY UTOPIAN?

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THE PSYCHODRAMA OF MANKIND. IS IT REALLY UTOPIAN?

 

Moreno always dreamt with the universal utilization of psychodramatic and sociodramatic techniques to help large communities in their social problems. The author discusses the urgent need to do so, in order to help many of the ethnic and political conflicts that emerge all over the world. The offended pride of a group will look for revenge during many generations.” Group Narcissism”; “ group mourning and reparation” are some of the concepts discussed in this article.

 

A truly therapeutic procedure cannot have less an objective than the whole of mankind… 

I predict sociometry and psychodrama will have an important place in the history of sociology as it will be written in the year 2000… 

We assumed — naively perhaps — that if a war can spread to encircle the globe, it should be equally possible to prepare and propagate a world sociometry. But this vision did not arise wholly out of thin air. Once we had successfully treated an entire community by sociometric methods, it seemed to us at least theoretically possible to treat an infinitely large number of such communities by the same methods — all the communities in fact, of which human society consists…

The sociometric experiment will end in becoming totalistic not only in expansion and extension but also in intensity, thus marking the beginning of a political sociometry.”

(Moreno, 1978)

Moreno’s pretension to treat the whole of mankind by psychodrama has always seemed exaggerated and improbable to me — utopian dreams of a man who, besides having sought more regard and recognition than he had in life, had also made predictions for the distant year 2000 which he would never witness.

Having said that, I have just returned from the 13th International Congress on Group Psychotherapies held in London. This is August 1998 and we are coming very close to the year 2000. I came back thinking differently. I wanted to review these words of Moreno’s, so I read them carefully. I heard things at this congress that repeatedly reminded me of Moreno, and I am writing this paper so I can share my recent findings with you.

I was particularly impressed by the core theme of the keynotes at this congress. The lecturers, all of them professionals of worldwide renown for their scientific works, belonged to an inter-area of interest blending at one time history, sociology, anthropology, politics, and psychology. Their main concern was to be able to understand and contain the escalation of the so-called political and ethnic wars.

I will summarize some of their ideas specially some concerns of Vamik Volkan (1997), a Turkish psychiatrist whose book ¾ Blood Lines, from ethnic pride to ethnic terrorism ¾ unfortunately has not yet been translated into Portuguese.

Volkan points out that although the so-called Major Armed Conflicts [1] have reached a plateau since 1986 – around 30 conflicts in 25 localities ¾ minor conflicts , commonly known as Ethnic Terrorism [2] have undergone a startling growth ( estimation of The Institute for International Peace Research at Stockholm )

After World War II , as adopted by the UN , the term “ethnic background” ( “ethno” comes from the Greek word ethnos meaning tribe, company, people) has been used as a substitute for the term “race”, due to the connotations of biological inferiority and superiority which the Nazis lent the term race.

But new words have not changed old problems. National civility, which used to allow people from different cultures in the same nation [3] to live together in peace, has been defeated by ethnic hatred, and millions of people have died since then in “confrontations among neighbors”.

In Yugoslavia, for instance, it is estimated that 65,000 people have died on account of ethnic conflicts; in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 55,000 have died; in Croatia, about 10,000; and in Rwanda, deaths have reached one million already. And how many more people may be dying in conflicts in Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Georgia, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Liberia, old Burma, Peru, the Philippines, Somalia, Sri-Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, England, and Zaire?

Our attention is turned to the barbarism of these conflicts as human rights are completely ignored and genocide is their frequent goal, and not even the ethic codes of traditional wars are adopted. We no longer talk about the “extermination of a people”. Nowadays “ethnic cleansing” is the word of command and not a single soul belonging to a different ethnic group should live – not even those who still recall the lands and homes they used to possess.

Décio de Freitas (1998) shows us that many of those who fight and kill one another may be ethnically similar in history, in blood, in language, and even in religion. Intolerance focuses not on macroscopic differences, but on subtle alliances. There is loyalty to a small ethnic group and not to the greater nation. There is a clamor for revenge on account of past resentment, a trans generational effort at any cost, to restore the dignity of a people.

You must be wondering what Moreno has to do with that. Well, the old dream of treating the whole of mankind is modern in Europe right now. The failure of the traditional international diplomacy has generated a growing demand for a change in the concept of diplomatic work which now includes the psychological dimension of events and not only their social and economic aspects.

Volkan mentioned Donald Horowitz, a political scientist, who advocates the idea that the amount of passion expressed in these ethnic conflicts calls for an explanation that takes emotions into consideration. Complex questions, briefly described below, connected to the identity of large groups, the concept of ethnicity, how a large group elaborate cultural losses, etc., are now being discussed.

THE IDENTITY OF LARGE GROUPS

 

Volkan explains that human beings have always lived in emotionally linked groups, such as clans or tribes. “Ethnic Group” is the contemporary term for this phenomenon, defining a number of people with something in common: their place of origin, their ancestors, their traditions, their religious beliefs, and their language. Besides these characteristics, people from the same ethnic background also share a myth of inauguration, a kind of grandiose history about the origin of their group that includes a concept of generational biogenetic continuity and lends the group some special and unique characteristics, which make it different from all the others.

The perception of one’s own tribe or group as being human and superior to the others, which are seen as sub-human, is a universal phenomenon that intrigues scientists. It seems that in the beginning, neighboring tribes used to compete for survival items such as food and water. With time, and as soon as their survival was assured, other superfluous items became targets of competition. However, once these items could boost the self-esteem of whoever possessed them, they became symbols of power. These symbols, in turn, gained particular colors, a particular flag, a song, and other cultural indicators of the shared identity and of the history myth of that particular group.

Volkan exemplifies this point describing that the ancient Chinese people used to call themselves persons and other races, Kuei, which means hunting spirits. The American Apaches called themselves indeh (persons) and others, indah (enemies). The word barbarian means foreigner in English.

Ethnicity is an aspect of personal identity; it is a social, not biological identity, and it goes beyond genetic considerations. Its major peculiarity is that it is felt only when a group interacts with another, as if it were a force that only manifests itself through interacting with a different group[4]. A certain degree of ethnocentrism is common and healthy in all groups, but it may dangerously break into a type of racism.

THE PERSONALITY AND THE PSYCHODYNAMICS OF ETHNIC GROUPS

Very little is known so far about how large groups function. Freud (1920) has made some attempts to study group phenomena. Before him, other authors, namely the French sociologist Gustavo Le Bonn (Freud, 1920) and American Mac Dougall (Freud, 1920) had tried to provide some explanations on the matter. The latter found that whenever an individual takes part in a group, he/she will loses his/her habitual identity and experiences an increase in his/her ability to become emotional and supple as well as a decrease in intellectual and cognitive abilities.

Freud attributed these phenomena to the libido, which he credited with creating and maintaining love ties in a group. To him, the group mind was structured in a manner similar to that of family models; love among group members and their ability to influence one another would be proportional to the love and respect achieved by the leader of the family. As to hostilities among members, those were attributed to poorly resolved oedipal questions.

Volkan views this explanation as incomplete, clarifying little of the question of aggressiveness in human relations or of why a sense of group identity sometimes leads to brutal acts of violence.

According to Volkan, Freud himself was cautious in applying his findings in individual psychology to group psychology. In 1932, Albert Einstein, in an article entitled “Why war?”, asked Freud whether there was any way whatsoever of preventing wars from happening. Freud was pessimistic in saying that there was no way to eliminate the aggressive inclination of human beings. Many other psychoanalysts have made contributions to large group psychology without, however, bringing more comprehensive or satisfactory explanations than Freud’s.

Fortunately, new efforts have been made. In 1978, Egyptian president Anwar-El-Sadat directly addressed and welcomed mental health professionals to work jointly with diplomats in an effort to understand and destroy the psychological barrier, which, in his words, constituted 70% of the problem between the Arab-Israeli people.

A grant was obtained from the United Nations Fund for this purposes and a small committee was created within the American Psychiatry Association, which held meetings in various places in Europe. From 1980 to 1986, Egyptian, Palestinian, Israeli, and American psychiatrists and diplomats split and joined small discussion groups as a way to facilitate the dialog between the parties of the dispute.

This effort brought new and valuable insights into both the behavior and the identity of emotionally linked large groups.

PSYCHOLOGY AS A MEDIATOR OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS

 

Volkan reports a few interesting facts that occurred at these meetings. In his judgment, nothing was ever made of the ideas discussed. However, these ideas have undoubtedly affected and are still to affect top decisions on the Arab-Palestinian conflict. The meetings have, at the minimum, served the purpose of promoting some long-lasting relationships between the participants as well as of expanding the dialog.

In the beginning, both the Israelis and the Arabs seemed to be in competition as to which of the two had been victimized by more aggression and injustice, and any new incident would rekindle memories of incidents that sometimes dated back centuries.

The grief of one group would create little empathy in the other group and talking about past injuries seemed to enhance the persecution in the present, allowing a sense of group identity to grow.

A crucial moment in the discussions was reached in a small group in which the participants came to the conclusion that both sides shared a feeling of fear. The mutual recognition of fear contributed a positive atmosphere to the discussions. But that only happened following a tense argument between an Egyptian journalist and historian and an Israeli infant psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist asked the journalist how he could ever convince her not to fear the Palestinians. He replied that he found it impossible to believe that the Israelis could fear the Palestinians.

The next day, the journalist said that, unable to sleep all night, he had consulted the Koran and found a passage describing the fear of Moses. Stricken by surprise, he then apologized, saying that “if Moses could have been afraid, she, as a human being, might feel that way as well”.

Another conclusion arising from this meeting was that group mourning was a totally unknown phenomenon. When facing an individual loss, there is a whole path taken by an individual, with the support of a group closely related to him/her, in elaborating feelings of impotence, anger, humiliation, etc., so that he/she may grow to accept the loss and the life change such a loss may impose.

With respect to groups and communities, there seems to be no elaboration of this group mourning to the extent to which a phenomenon Volkan calls a “time collapse” may occur, whereby a trauma experienced centuries ago seems concomitant to a recent event. While both events are intellectually separated, emotionally they move along together.

 

CULTURALLY UNRESOLVED MOURNING AND ITS TRANSGENERATIONAL CONVEYANCE

 

Losses experienced by a culture as a whole, such as the killing of beloved idols, natural disasters resulting in a high number of deaths, domination, imprisonment, humiliation of a group by another, etc., also require a process of mourning and elaboration, and an unsuccessful attempt to achieve this may cause them to become perennial.

A culture conveys its message of grief in most peculiar ways. For instance, it may use mass communication to report an event or create anecdotes as a way of elaborating a tragedy. It may use cultural rites for celebrating the anniversary of these traumatic events or it may build monuments of metal or stone to symbolize the strength with which these events will be forever remembered.

Whenever a whole generation is decimated, subjugated, and forbidden to cry and ritualize its loss (as in the case of the Holocaust in World War II and of the Navajos, who were expelled from their land by American settlers in 1864), those surviving such a tragedy are entrusted with conveying their sentiments to their descendants, as if posterior generations could be entrusted with the task of mourning and elaborating once forbidden to their ancestors.

To a certain degree, nothing is ever forgotten by a culture. One could analogously speak of a collective unconscious according to Jung[5] or of a co-unconscious[6], recalling Moreno, or even of post-traumatic stress disorder[7]. In short, there are group mechanisms used for damming up and transgenerationally conveying, in a way yet unknown to science, the resentment, traumas and injustices experienced by a given generation.

Anne Ancelin Schützemberger (1997) presents numerous clinical samples of what she calls the “anniversary syndrome” where within the same family, a given tragic event, for instance, a fatal accident, is repeated for various generations, always on the same date. Another interesting report of hers is about “family secrets” which return encrypted in a given patient elected in a posterior generation who, through his/her symptoms, speaks of what was once before unspeakable and unthinkable.

Ivan Boszmormenyi-Nagy (1983) introduced the brilliant concept of “invisible loyalty”, arguing that family and cultural relations included a dimension of both the justice and equity present within a family or a culture. Symptoms and repeated patterns are means of desperately seeking the restoration of an ethics of transgenerational relationships.

The concept of parentification also comes from this author — the inversion of dependencies in which children take care of their parents. This involves an implicit and complex system of merit and debt bookkeeping in which all that was once received by a child in the form of care, kindness and companionship must eventually be repaid to the parents.

Every injustice suffered by the family will also be entered in the bookkeeping and each family member will be entrusted to the task of either seeking revenge or forgetting injustice. There is no way to escape these family obligations without carrying a feeling of “amorphous, indefinable existential guilt”.

It is interesting to note that, although the word loyalty derives from the Latin word legalitas, which refers to law, its real meaning is connected to an invisible, interweaving of family expectations not always manifested through justice or legality. Individuals who do not learn the meaning of justice within family relationships will tend to develop a distorted idea of social justice.

 

GROUP NARCISSISM, RESENTMENT, REVENGE AND FURY

 

Would it be possible for us to consider the existence of a narcissistic group system in which individual worth is connected to the worth of the group to which the individual belongs and, as a consequence, that any attack to this group’s self-esteem would trigger responses of fury and revenge aimed at restoring the group’s lost dignity?

We know that this is true on an individual basis. I myself (Cukier, 1998) have previously affirmed that “children abused in their childhood are like time bombs” in that they will seek retaliation for this abuse as soon as they have the power to do so.

In large groups, it seems to take the parallel occurrence of many factors to culminate in a reaction of revengeful fury. The presence of a fanatic leader, with a childhood history of abuse and negligence, is one of these factors. Alice Miller (1993) demonstrates that, behind all great catastrophes of mankind, there were always narcissistic, sadistic leaders hurt by negligent and abusive parents who were never able to deal with the basic needs of their children. This was true for Adolf Hitler, Stalin and Nicolae Ceausescu who were spanked and humiliated in their childhood.

Another predisposing variable is the present occurrence, or a still-remembered past occurrence, of an attack to “the group’s pride”. According to Kohut (1988), group cohesion is achieved through shared greatness; groups will present regressive, narcissistic transformations every time this greatness is attacked. These regressive transformations of group narcissism encompass narcissistic aggression, anger, fury, and revenge. Kohut says:

“The desire to make a passive experience into an active one, the mechanism of identification with the aggressor, the sadistic tensions preserved by those who, as children, were sadistically treated by their parents — all of these factors — help explain the promptness of a shame-prone individual to react against a situation which he may potentially provoke by using a simple remedy: to actively (and often anticipatory) inflict on others those narcissistic damages which he himself fears to suffer”.

There are also culturally rooted factors favoring aggressive reactions, such as symptoms of self-repudiation or shame. This is true for Japanese people who reject the facial characteristics of their own race and undergo plastic surgeries to acquire the characteristics of the majority group in possession of the social and economic power.

Hugo Bleichmar (1987) calls these identifying objects or traces which we wish to possess so that their intrinsic worth may be conferred upon us (such as cars, jewelry, a certain type of eyes, etc.) “narcissistic possessions of the ego”. Bleichmar also shows us how culture has many different terms for reality, which carry identifying beliefs and attributes which confer worth upon an individual. That is true with possessive adjectives used in the context of genetic family inheritance. The words “my, thy, and ours” literally build a bridge between objects and their possessors. Bleichmar affirms:

“The word my comes across to a child as having the same meaning as when used by his parents in my child: the parents’ narcissism requires that the child-phallus be regarded as a product of their own. Therefore, my child stands for the child who, having been created by me, is my own. Hence the expression speaks of myself. ”

Moreover, there are logical rules in the individual unconscious, for instance, the logic of the class structure, which gives equal identity and worth to those included. That is how we understand why, despite impetuous fights within the same family, every time somebody from outside the family criticizes one of its members, because this member is considered the narcissistic property of the ego, all the other members will immediately come to his defense.

To Anne Ancelin Schützemberger (1997), group resentment is a phenomenon connected to the injustice suffered by that particular group on behalf of one of its members. Loyalty as a moral obligation makes all individuals in a group feel they have an obligation to seek equity and justice; whoever fails to fulfill this obligation will be found guilty and deserving of punishment.

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” — is the law of Talion [8] , which sets the rules for the final settlement of debts for long-suffering mankind. In the end, we may all end up toothless and blind. Would Moreno be able to help us?

Moreno’s suggestions for treating mankind:

Moreno created sociodrama for treating groups and collective problems. His book ” Who shall survive? “ is wholly targeted at formulating and testing ways to make this project feasible. He defines sociodrama as:“a deep action method dealing with inter-group relations and collective ideologies” (1978, p. 87)

Moreno made many attempts at theorizing on group behavior. He proposed a distinction between the identity process and the identification process. In his words:“Identity should be considered apart from the process of identification. It develops prior to the latter in the infant and it operates in all inter-group relations of adult society. For the infant, “self” and immediate milieus are the same thing; there is no self-other relation. “Self” and “other” are two as yet undifferentiated portions of the “matrix of identity” (1975, p. 381).

 

Moreno suggested the term “identity of role”, for naming what we would contemporarily call ethnic identity:“Negroes take themselves as a single collective, the Negro, a condition which submerges all individual differences […] We shall call this identity, the identity of role” (1975, p. 442).

Moreno spoke many times of catharsis in sociodrama and catharsis in psychodrama, emphasizing that in sociodrama one seeks to treat questions related to the identity: “The protagonist on the stage is not portraying a dramatis personae, the creative output of a mind of an individual playwright, but a collective experience. He, an auxiliary ego, is an emotional extension of many egos. Therefore, in a sociodramatic sense, it is not the identification of the spectator with the actor on the stage, presuming some differences between him and the character which the latter portrays. It is identity. All Christians, all Negroes […] Every Christian is, as a Christian, identical to every other Christian […] In the primary phase of collective identity, there is no need, therefore, for identification. There is no difference between spectators and actors; all are protagonists” (1978, p 365).

Moreno did not address group narcissism, but came close when he affirmed that envy could be a resentment engine acting between groups: […] “The Jewish population in Germany may have produced more individual leaders than their numeric proportion, either because the Jews suffer from a surplus of leaders or because Germans suffer from an insufficiency in leader production […] As the majority of the dependent groups are Germans, we can imagine feelings of resentment arising among the German leader groups, together with the conviction that they have more “natural right” than the Jewish leaders to direct the German masses of workers and farmers (1978, p. 563).

Besides this, the sociometric test itself, through its calculation of choices, rejections, and neutralities, ends up addressing the narcissistic question at its core, provoking reactions — many times catastrophic — which Moreno pointed out and attempted to explain. On sociometric procedures, he affirms: […] “Sociometric procedures should be greeted favorably as they aid in bringing to recognition and into realization the basic structure of a group. But such is not always the case. They are met with resistance and even hostility by others…” (1978, p. 94).

“Other individuals also showed fear of the revelations the sociometric procedure might bring. The fear is stronger with some people and weaker with others. One may be most anxious to arrange one’s relationships in accord with one’s desires; another may be afraid of the consequences […] These and other remarks reveal a fundamental phenomenon, a form of interpersonal resistance, a resistance against expressing the preferential feelings which one has for others” (1978, p. 585).

Moreno was always concerned about racial conflicts and even formulated the idea of a racial quotient: “From the social interaction of the members and from their emotional expansiveness, a group expression reaches its saturation point for a certain contrasting racial element; this is a racial quotient” (1979 p. 410).

 Moreno also formulated the concept of the point of racial saturation in which he expresses the idea that there is a certain point beyond which a majority population becomes saturated with a minority population, which thereby favors racial discrimination: “A population may become saturated with a minority group at a given time. If an excess of the minority group move into the majority community, the delicate balance begins to break. In the case of a chemical solution, its point of saturation for a certain substance may change with, for instance, the rise or fall of the temperature. In the case of social groups, the point of saturation may change with the organization of interrelated groups.” (1978, p. 721).

In The Negro-White Problem: a psychodramatic protocol, Moreno (1977) daringly discusses the situation of African Americans in the United States, developing some important theoretical considerations on the processes of racial discrimination and the counter-responses it gives rise to.

Actually, after he wrote The words of the father, Moreno seemed to have the firm intention of, instead of pulling out eyes and teeth, as proposed in the law of talion, only exchanging eyes and symbolically exchanging places with and understanding “the other, the enemy, the different”. That is what he does in his “Nazi Prayer” as he shows himself capable of exchanging roles even with the enemies of the Jewish people where he himself belonged:

“Oh God,

Our race is like healthy green grass.

Other races are like weeds,

They hinder the healthy green grass

From unfolding

Uproot the weeds

And destroy them!” (1971, p. 276)

His conceptualization of axiodrama, a sociodrama focused on matters of ethics and value, also denotes a concern with the community context in that it proposes discussing and role-playing the so-called “eternal truths”, such as justice, beauty, truth, perfection, eternity, peace, etc.: “The organism in the field becomes the actor in situ. Whole cultures can be “acted out” piecemeal in the experimental settings of axiodrama and sociodrama, with the protagonists as creators and interpreters” (1978, p. 61).

Moreno was very deeply plugged, into his time, though also deeply critical of the achievements of his time. For instance, he used to disqualify our over-robot-filled age with lots of technical devices for lacking life and spontaneity and substituting human relationships. However, he did not hesitate to use this same technology in spreading his sociocratic methods. He made use of movies and suggested, in a chapter written in co-authorship with John K. Fischel at the end of his book Psychodrama, possible ways of adapting spontaneity methods to television resources: “These odd enemies are technical animals, which can be divided into two classes: cultural conserve and machines. The more popular word for them is robot.“ (1978, p. 600).

“It is advisable to organize psychodrama sessions to be broadcasted to the world from TV stations […] It is advisable to organize live and role-played newscasts that can be transmitted to the world through TV stations. This is healthier than the usual photographic newscast of events; it is a tool through which the lively and creative genius may, in this planet, communicate directly and instantaneously with its peers” (1977, p. 419)

Moreno was against dolls, mechanical toys, aseptic baby bottles — in short — against technology. I, however, keep thinking that, were he still among us, he would undoubtedly find a way to use the Internet as a forum for discussions, a free tribune, and perhaps role-playing via satellite, making it possible for archenemies to exchange roles, or find that fear, pain, horror, loneliness, humiliation, pride… — all of these – are attributes shared by mankind as a whole and not only by a particular tribe.

CONCLUSION

 

I would like to close this paper by paying tribute to those colleagues among us who have put forth their best efforts in pursuing Moreno’s sociocratic lead. I am talking about the growth and creativity of various groups and schools of Spontaneous Theater, groups doing sociodramatization work with rural communities, needy populations and with minorities discriminated against on account of health problems and poverty, and about the growth community services dealing with domestic violence.

I am also enchanted with the possibility of using role-playing as a means for working with large groups. To summarize, I believe that we psychodramatists have the daring that it takes to push this social project forward.

I mentioned daring because a job like this does indeed require a great deal of courage. Volkan (1997), with his group of diplomats, politicians, historians, and psychoanalysts was able to hold few and small verbal meetings, all closed, with a restricted audience. Reading his book gives us a measure of how tense and dangerous the environment in these meetings can be.

Could you imagine ethnic confrontations on TV, all conducted by a skilled psychodramatist, with millions of people inter-acting, sending in questions, contributing arguments, facts… I am amazed by the thought of it!!

However, how many of us would have the audacity to conduct such psycho-political sociodramas? Directing sociodramas and large audiences is a task very few would be able to perform. In fact, no psychodrama school has ever prepared us for such a task. Moreno gives us an idea, but we have a lot to learn.

I have already witnessed chaotic sociodrama sessions with directors lost and ashamed — and I have even watched shoes being thrown by an enraged audience. Large groups, such as described by Freud, seem to function like a wild animal in need of taming, and words, as used in individual communication do not convey their messages in the same way. Maybe applause or cheers would do the trick… Maybe we should seek the help of mass communication professionals.

I do not know exactly how to go about it, but I have a feeling that we must learn in a group how to deal with groups. The experience of studying Moreno – such a complex writer and author — with GEM[9], in a group, bit by bit, patiently and persistently, has taught me that everything is possible whenever a large number of people are working together.

In closing, I would once again like to remember Volkan’s (1997) suggestion, that maybe it is necessary to articulate great intercultural, intergenerational, and multigenerational apologies. Not long ago we watched Mikhail Gorbachev apologize on behalf of Russia for the massacres in Poland. the Catholic Church has also apologized for its apathy toward the extermination of Jews during World War II.[10]

I wish Moreno could accept my apologies for the many times I regarded him as a foolish dreamer, alone up in the hill, looking at a future only he could glimpse at. Maybe he was indeed a fool — but he is not the only one. There are many fools like him trying to help the United Nations so we can at least have A FUTURE.

References

  • Bleichmar, H. (1987). O narcisismo. Estudo e Enunciação da Gramática Inconsciente Editora Artes Médicas, Porto Alegre , Brasil.
  • Boszmormenyi-Nagy I. (1984)- Invisible Loyalties : Reciprocity in Intergenerational Family Therapy , Brunner/Mazel, U.S.A
  • Cukier, R. (1998). Sobrevivência emocional: as feridas da infância revividas no drama adulto, Ágora. , S.Paulo-Brasil.
  • Décio de Freitas (1998). Máscaras do neo-racismo, Jornal “O Globo”, 9 de agosto de 1998, Porto Alegre-Brasil.
  • Freud, S. (1920-1921)- Psicologia das massas e análise do ego. In – obras completas, tomo III , Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid.
  • Kohut, H. (1988). Psicologia do self e cultura humana., Artes Médicas. Porto Alegre-Brasil.
  • Miller, A. (1993). Breaking down the wall of silence. New York, Meridian Book.
  • Moreno, J. L (1977). Psychodrama. vol. 1, 4th ed., New York, Beacon House.
  • Moreno, J. L. (1971). The words of the father. New York, Beacon House.
  • Moreno, J. L. (1978). Who shall survive? Foundation of Sociometry, Group Psycotherapy, and Sociodrama, New York, Beacon House.
  • Samuels, A. (1988). Dicionário crítico de analise junguiana.. Imago. Rio de Janeiro-Brasil
  • Schützemberger, Anne A. (1997). Meus antepassados. Paulus Editora, S.Paulo-Brasil .
  • Volkan, V. (1997). Bloodlines: from ethnic pride to ethnic terrorism., Farrar, Straus and Giroux,. New York.
  • [1] A major armed conflict is defined as a prolonged conflict between military forces from two or more governments resulting in over 1000 deaths.
  • [2] Terrorist attacks inspired by ethnic and/or religious differences and led by individuals and small groups.
  • [3] The difference between a nation and an ethnic group is that the idea of nation implies political autonomy, the establishment of frontiers or, at least, organizations establishing roles, positions, and status. The majority of nations are formed by more than one ethnic group and some researchers call these ethnic groups sub-nations.
  • [4] In Yugoslavia, for instance, it is people of the same blood but of different religions who kill one another
  • 21Jung’s collective unconscious is a broader concept than Freud’s concept of the unconscious. Jung’s concept includes, besides the repressed childhood experience, the experience philogenetically accumulated by mankind, which functions independently from the Ego because it originates in a structure inherent to the brain. Its manifestations are found in culture in the fashioning of universal motives, which possess their own degree of attraction.(Samuels 1988))
  • 22 Moreno(1975) describes the co-unconscious as a state shared simultaneously by all participants of the same living experience and which, therefore, can only be reproduced and represented by a group.
  • 23 Post-traumatic stress disorder consists of a debilitating reaction following some traumatic event. Very frequently encountered in war veterans, it also includes reactions to serious accidents, natural disasters, and violent assaults such as rape and torture. The onset of this condition causes a person to have recurring memories of shocking facts, which intrusively devastate their thoughts in the form of nightmares or of daytime fantasies. Sleep disorders, irritability, the lack of a sense of belonging, and loneliness are also experienced.
  • 24 The law of talion [lex talionis], which belongs to the Code of Laws of Hammurabi, King of Babylon in 2500 BC, by which a penalty inflicted should correspond in degree and kind to the offense of the wrongdoer.
  • 9 GEM – DAIMON – Group of Studies of Moreno’s Works at the Daimon Clinic in São Paulo
  • [10] Today (feb/17/ 2000), as I ‘m revising the final version of this article for the “Forum” , I’m deeply touched by Johannes Rau, Germany’s president, who apologizes the Jewish Community for Holocausts .

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