Trauma, Trust and Memory: Social Trauma and Reconciliation in Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, and Cultural Memory is a new book edited by Andreas Hamburger, a psychoanalyst and friend of the IDI with whom we collaborated during our 2016 meeting in Berlin. Published in 2018 by Karnac (www.karnacbooks.com), it addresses one of the most important topics in the clinical, social and cultural field: social traumatization in the aftermath of genocide, war and persecution.
Because it is targeted at whole groups, social traumatization affects the individual’s immediate holding environment, cutting injured people off from an important source of resilience. Further, social trauma is implemented in a societal context, thus involving the surrounding society in the traumatic process. Both conditions entail major consequences for the impact and prognosis of the resulting individual posttraumatic disorders as well as for social and cultural consequences. This volume connects clinical and epidemiological studies on the sequelae of social trauma to reflections from social psychology, psychoanalysis and the humanities.
Post-war and post-dictatorial societies are in particular marked by the effects of massive, large group traumatization. If these effects are not acknowledged, explored, and mourned, the unprocessed cumulative trauma becomes deeply embedded in the collective memory and may lead to periodic reactivations and traumatogenic actions. For example, in times of renewed societal stress, the persecution of religious, societal, and ethnic groups may emerge and generate further suffering. Society and culture as a whole must deal with the historical scars and traces in order to break the cycle of trauma.
Psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry describe individual coping and consequences, but understanding the effects of social traumatization requires the study of society. This project brought together scholars from different disciplines, and from the Balkan region and Germany, to form a network with young researchers in order to study the long-term consequences of social traumatization. International supporters such as Anna Buchheim, Horst Kächele, Susan Kaplan, Mark Solms, Annette Streeck-Fischer, Mary Target, Svenja Taubner, and Vamik Volkan lent their hands in shaping this cooperation.
This joint research was conducted not just “on”, but “in” the situation of social post-traumatic states – that is, in the very region where just two decades ago a war and persecution took place. Young researchers planned, conducted, and shared their studies in multinational, multi-ethnic, and multidisciplinary groups and in close cooperation with senior researchers. Their findings are reported in this volume, which represents a unique collaboration and perhaps a model for learning from differences.
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