Vamik Volkan

A Study of Bloody Conflicts

Killing in the Name of Identity

In this pioneering textbook, a master psychoanalyst makes his innovative "field work" teaching technique available to seasoned practitioners and budding students alike. They can, figuratively, sit outside the one-way mirror to watch Dr. Volkan treat patients with neurotic, borderline, and narcissistic personalities, from start to finish, using both modern and classical psychoanalytic techniques. Dr. Volkan not only explains what he is doing while he is doing it, but he also asks and answers the perennial questions so common to analytic work: what am I treating? what do I say? and why does it work? Fascinating and extraordinarily illuminating, Psychoanalytic Technique Expanded is unique in offering an intimate view of updated analytic treatment for an array of disorders. With an engaging narrative style that takes the reader into the depths of analytic work, this textbook can be effectively incorporated into psychiatry and psychology training programs as well as into advanced psychotherapy training programs and beginning technique courses for psychoanalytic candidates.

A Textbook on Psychoanalytic Treatment

Psychoanalytic Technique Expanded

Blind Trust is the culmination of more than three decades of profound immersion in the most pressing sociopolitical conflicts of our time, by the psychoanalyst with probably the most direct experience with such issues of any in the world. Author Vamik Volkan applies his knowledge of depth psychology to the turbulent and destructive human experiences in the current cauldrons of the greatest unrest and disaster throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Illuminating the etiologic bases of war, revolution, massacres, and terror, as these have disturbed the world from ancient times to modern civilization, his voice speaks for the imperative of reason and the application of modern analytic knowledge for conflict resolution at the highest levels. The subjects are large groups and their leaders: windows into the lives of the Prophet Muhammad, Stalin, Milosevic, Osama Bin Laden, and David Koresh are interspersed with examinations of religion and fundamentalism and a sober study of suicide attackers. Volkan's detailed and scholarly description of regressive movements in large-group identities, complemented by an equal attention to progressive and creative reparative forces, represents a significant expansion of our understanding of group psychology.

Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror

Blind Trust

In the wake of recent conflicts in Russia and the former Yugoslavia, ethnic terrorism and ethnic cleansing have become household words. Yet we are at a loss to find solutions to such struggles. In Bloodlines, Vamik Volkan, a world-renowned psychiatrist specializing in international relations, explores ethnic violence by examining history and diplomacy through a psycho-analytic lens.Dr. Volkan leads the reader on investigative tours of battlegrounds in the Middle East, Russia, Turkey, Cyprus, the Baltics, and the Balkans. In Serbia, he discovers that the Battle of Kosovo, fought in 1389, is the rallying cry for modern nationalists, who view the past as prophecy. In Turkey, PKK terrorist leader Apo reveals that he still considers himself an unloved child and orders his army of Kurdish women to remain virgins because of his own disgust with “unclean” adult behavior. In Latvia, after the dissolution of the USSR, Dr. Volkan learns that ethnic Latvians plan to disinter corpses and segregate cemeteries in an attempt to establish a national identity separate from that of Russia. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, Dr. Volkan analyzes these issues of identity formation, perceived versus real threats, the persistence of past traumas, and the desire for revenge.The result is a work that lays the foundation for understanding the differences between ethnic groups as well as the common ground they share. Timely, brilliant, and gripping, Bloodlines gives fascinating insights into how personal identity intertwines with nationality, and why hatred of others becomes a part of our sense of self.

Vamik Volkan

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