The Trialogue Conference, 2015 and 2017:
A Psycho-Historical Focus for Group Analytic Work
Stephan Alder, M.D.
Trialogue is a conference in which Germans, Russians and Ukrainians meet and explore relationships and relatedness between all three groups, as those are shaped by past and present experiences. The aim is to reduce prejudices and increase mutual trust.
“Trialogue” is a concept that involves a dialogue between humans/citizens from three countries, but one that includes the psychoanalytic idea of “triangulation” (Abelin, 1980, Kächele & Thomä, 2006). According to this concept, a dialogue between two parties often requires a third position in order for new insights to develop. During the conference, different participants alternately take this triangulating, perspective-giving position, to facilitate communication and deepen the dialogue.
The idea of the conference was initiated by Stephan Alder and was co-created by three psychotherapists from the three named countries: S. Alder, Germany, E. Pourtova, Russia, D. Zalessky, Ukraine, for 2015; J.Danko, Russia, and Y.Kobzieva, Ukraine, joined the 2017 team. The team first met in Krasnodar, a city in south Russia, during a supervision session of the Router Program of the International Association of Analytical Psychology, in the spring of 2013. The experience during these seminars and supervision sessions was that the common traumatic history of these three countries, especially as it related to the Second World War, was very much a part of our discussions.
This was the basis for the 1st Trialogue conference, which was held in spring, 2015, in Potsdam, Germany. The original plan was to host this conference in Kiev, Ukraine, but following the unpredictable changes in the area and the insecure situation, the location was moved to Germany. The 2nd conference took place in autumn, 2017, and the third is planned for 2019 (11th-14th April).
What happens in the Trialogue conference? The aim is to reflect on the past, present and future within one’s personal encounters and to reveal prejudices while transforming them into amenable attitudes. Personal encounters have to do with the actual relationships occurring between people; prejudices have to do with what is already “in-the-mind” about the other person, which we call “relatedness.” We could say that the aim of the conference is to learn about members’ relatedness so that it might be transformed by relationships, including what happens in important present moments (Stern 2004).
The first Trialogue conference hosted 63 participants and the second hosted 40 from Germany Russia and Ukraine. The program included daily work in small groups, a daily large group and social dreaming. Every group was led by two group leaders (Russian-German or Ukrainian-German) with one of three experienced interpreters.
During both conferences the major experience was of a transformational process of the inner landscapes of fear, prejudice, distrust, hate and valid convictions to a capacity for mutual acceptance. The process was of accepting the heroes and the horror of the past and present. The participants shared mourning, pain, guilt, shame, and love. Thus, the confidence and courage to develop further grew.
Questions remain, of course, about how members’ experiences of the conference can be transferred to everyday life as citizens. Our aim was that every participant would take back those experiences and transmit newly developed attitudes into their everyday life, not only in psychotherapeutic work but also in organizations and politics. A major question right now is whether it is possible to build bridges of mutual understanding when there are participants in the conference from countries currently at war.
The Trialogue Conference was inspired and influenced by the work of the “Nazareth Conferences”, organized by Partners in Confronting Collective Atrocities and the “Voices after Auschwitz Conferences,” led by R. Friedman (2015, 2017). We were supported by BIG (Berlin Institute for Group Analysis, www.gruppenanalyse-berlin.de), IAAP, DGAP, D3G, BGPPmP and others. Further details can be found on our website (www.trialog-conference.org) and in a book published in Germany (Alder & Buchholz, 2017) in which participants as well as silent observers shared their impressions.
References:
Abelin, E. (1980): Triangulation, the Role of the Father and the Origins of Core Gender Identity during the Rapprochement Subphase. In: Rapprochement, ed. R. Lax, S. Bach and J. Burland. New York: Jason Aronson, S. 151–169.
Alder, M.-L. & M.B. Buchholz (2017) Trialog – Beobachtungen einer Konferenz der Begegnung ukrainischer, russischer und deutscher Psychotherapeuten http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11780/3771
Friedman, R. (2015) Die Gruppe in der Soldaten-Matrix/ The Group in the Soldier´s Matrix Gruppenpsychotherapie und Gruppendynamik, Band 51, Ausgabe 3: 191-205. Vandenhoeck&Rupprecht, Göttingen.
Friedman, R. 2017, http://igd2017.weebly.com, last reading 04-29-18.
Kächele, H., & Thomä, H. (2006). Psychoanalytische Therapie: Grundlagen. Springer.
Stern, D.N. (2004) The Present Moment In Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. New York: W.W.Norton & Company
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