Individual and large-group identity: parallels in development and characteristics in stability and crisis.

A comprehensive understanding of international and interethnic conflict must include a psychological dimension. This paper explores concepts of individual and large-group identity, their inherent connection, and some essential large-group rituals that aim to repair and maintain them. Human psychological development not only involves dynamics associated with one's parents, family, and intimate environment, but also those of one's ethic, religious or national group. Although this may simply be called "acculturation", the evolution of large-group identity involves specific psychological processes. When a large group perceives that its identity is threatened, the group and its individual members typically experience anxiety which is then expressed in certain ritualistic behaviors that can range from benign to highly malignant. Social scientists, diplomats and others who seek to analyze social and political phenomena and formulate policies related to them could benefit from a better understanding of these aspects of human interaction.

Identification with the therapist's functions and ego-building in the treatment of schizophrenia.

People with schizophrenia lack the ability to develop--to differentiate and integrate--their self- and object-representations, and suffer from primitive 'object-relations' conflicts, which occur when they try to develop (to differentiate and integrate) their self- and object-world. When a therapist interacts beneficially with a schizophrenic patient and enables him/her to identify with the ego functions involved in this interaction, the patient's frail psychic structure receives nourishment that will strengthen it: this process is similar to human development, where a child attains psychic organisation by interacting with the one who nurtures him/her. The recommended approach in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of schizophrenia is to 'allow' the natural evolution of the fusion-defusion and introjection-projection processes to appear in the experiences of transference and counter-transference.

The development of female transsexualism.

Characteristics by which to classify a woman as authentically transsexual are offered from earlier investigations and supplemented by findings from recent work with this type of patient. Developmental issues are discussed and six psychodynamic accompaniments listed. A case demonstrates how to identify the true female transsexual and how to understand her psychological processes.

Psychological concepts useful in the building of political foundations between nations: Track II diplomacy.

There are two phases in the process of negotiating for peace with antagonistic national groups. The leader (or leaders) of one such group will not negotiate with his opposite number until political foundations to support such negotiation are laid down, and obstacles to peace identified and dealt with; at least some measure of success is anticipated by both sides. Accordingly, the first phase requires the building of bridges between those representing opposing nations. The activities in this preliminary phase are sometimes called Track II diplomacy; they differ from those of official or Track I diplomacy. I suggest two kinds of concepts that may be useful in Track II diplomacy, and present them in the hope of initiating further discussion, and exploration of metapsychological underpinnings of each concept. As Mitscherlich (1971) suggested, the psychology of international politics may be better understood if psychoanalysts are willing to engage in interdisciplinary work with others engaged in such endeavors.

Symptom formations and character changes due to upheavals of war: examples from Cyprus.

This article offers a review of the psychoanalytic and psychiatric literature on symptom formation and individual and collective character changes triggered by war or by similarly violent civil upheaval. It is suggested that each such event should be studied by itself since many different circumstances can bring man to acts of aggression. The effects of the war on Cyprus, where group narcissism developed to compensate for hurt, constitute a case example of such focused study.

Transsexualism and a new type of psychosurgery.

A discussion of "The Transsexual Wish in a Psychotic Character" by Katherine MacVicar, M.D. Patients in increasing numbers are seeking sex-reassignment surgery. The topic receives coverage in both the lay and professional press; many advocate surgery as the only "cure". Clinical study reveals that these patients have borderline personality organization and are seeking to discard bad and aggressive features and to replace them with a new idealized perfection. Surgical procedures in these cases can usefully be conceptualized as a new type of psychosurgery.

Mourning and adaptation after a war.

This paper offers a study of the ways in which a war and its consequences affect psychologically those on the victorious side. The subjects of my study are the Turks of Cyprus; I will report on the psychological processes dominant among them--their attempts at mourning to achieve a new adaptation--during the year after the Turkish occupation of the northern part of the island in the summer of 1974.

Psychiatric problems within the satellite-extended families of Turkey.

The many Turkish villagers who now migrate to large Turkish cities or enter the European labor force try to create models of the extended families they leave behind. Their satellite families necessarily drift away from tradition, however, in the direction of greater independence. This process often triggers psychiatric symptom formation.