To Verbalize the Unspeakable. The Group Analytical Aspect of Peace and War

Abstract

In the following article we will focus on the group analytic outlook on war. We will not only discuss the immeasurable suffering of soldiers, but also the civilian victims of wartime events. The correspondence between Einstein and Freud gives rise to many questions about the causes of wars. The life of every individual, since birth and through the earliest developmental processes, according to certain concepts, oscillates between the drives of Eros and Thanatos. During this processes, ‘inaudibility’, as Winnicott puts it, can take place, resulting in disorders and disruptions in the individual’s internal as well as external dialogue. We go on to consider how the ‘inaudibility’ and the consequences of war are dealt with in the Sophocles’ drama Antigone. As group analysts, in our contribution we have focused especially on the importance of group analytic treatment as a form of help for people suffering from PTSD, which Foulkes, the father of group analysis, realized as well. In the process of therapy, group members are able to verbalize the wordless world of trauma and face the deeper personality layers of their own past as well as the transgenerational transmission of aggression and other difficult feelings and experiences. The treatment may proceed on the individual basis as well.