‘Psychical Conflict to Global Violence’ , Sue GRAND, April 24th 2011

The American psychoanalyst Sue Grand who works in applied psychoanalysis on issues such as social trauma, ideologies, and war will address, in this conference, the psychic aspects of otherization in times of social conflict.  In our private lives, and on the global stage, we tend to split the world into heroes, cowards, and villains. To soothe traumatic wounds, we idealize the hero. This idealization asserts our omnipotence, relieves our death anxiety, and foments conflict. When we divide the world into heroes, cowards, and villains, our idealized objects can only be sustained by violence. We will attack the “enemy other” – in our selves, in our relationships, and in out groups. We will shame, and diminish, whatever seems weak, dependent or vulnerable – inside of ourselves, or in others. With this mechanism, we keep renewing traumatic experience, in our private lives, and on the world stage.  Through a focus on war and war veterans, this presentation examines our cultural constructions of heroes, cowards, and villains. How do we re-write these constructions, in search of psychic, and political, peace?