Reverberations of the Holocaust fifty years later: Psychology's contributions to understanding persecution and genocide (original) (raw)
History of the Human Sciences , 2004
In light of the great interest in interdisciplinary trauma research, this article explores the philosophical-literary concept of cultural trauma from the perspective of psychiatric and psychoanalytical studies of the long-term consequences of the Holocaust. The extensive literature on the psychological after-effects of the Final Solution offers an exceptional opportunity to study the aftermath of extreme violence from different subject positions, including the perspectives of survivors, perpetrators, bystanders, and their descendants. Moving from the epicenter of the historical event of the Holocaust to its psychological periphery, the survey reveals how much the concept of trauma has changed in the course of five decades as a result of political and cultural developments. But the review of the literature also demonstrates that none of the existing concepts of Holocaust trauma is well suited to explain the effects of Holocaust representations on individuals or collectives who encounter the Final Solution only as a media event for educational or entertainment purposes.
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 20(4), 349-364, 2014
The article offers a critical examination of “borrowing” as a form of interdisciplinary engagement between psychology and history. This is where specific insights from one discipline are used (often selectively) by the other to shed light on a specific problem regarding experience, human motivation, or behavior. Using two studies on the social psychological aspects of the Holocaust as relevant examples, the article highlights some of the epistemological and conceptual tensions implicit in this form of interdisciplinarity. These include the role of narrative and emplotment in historical reconstruction, the relationship between texts and historical context, the role of discourse and interpretation, and the tension between universalism and particularism. The article considers the different ways in which some of these challenges could be overcome in future research, and how one might take the interdisciplinary study of the Holocaust, but also other instances of mass crimes and genocide, beyond selective “borrowing.”
Political Psychology, 2008
A critical aspect of identity is relational: the sense of self in relation to others. Worldview, canonical expectations, and idealized cognitive models are critical determinants, with the ethical importance of values emanating not from particular values but from the integration of these values into the speaker's sense of self. Finally, cognitive categorization carries strong ethical overtones. The dehumanization that spurs perpetrators and the sense of moral salience that drives rescuers work through the cognitive classification of "the other."
Effects of the Holocaust: Psychiatric, Behavioral, and Survivor Perspectives, The
1984
In this paper the authors review perspectives related to Holocaust victims, limitations of Holocaust studies are discussed, and suggestions for viewing the long-range post-traumatic effects of the Holocaust upon its victims from social and behavioral science perspectives are advanced. The views of survivors toward postwar adjustment, drawn from interviews with Holocaust victims, are also presented.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2002
Book Reviews of the more common types of disorders. The appendix contains a website resource directory with more than 30 different sites for locating a therapist. Clearly, this is a helpful book for both therapists and clients. Having said this, however, the book does contain a few slight inaccuracies. For instance, the author states that psychiatrists are the only mental health professionals permitted by law to prescribe medication. This is not entirely true. In many states, psychiatric nurse practitioners now have limited prescribing rights and can prescribe psychotropic medication independent of physicians. There are also some physician assistants who work in the psychiatric field who can independently prescribe medication. Further, the author states that "while most psychologists possess Doctoral Degrees, in some states they can be licensed with Master's Degrees." This is no longer true as almost every state in the United States now requires at least a Doctoral Degree for independent practice. Of those few states that do license Master's level practitioners, it is usually on a two-tiered basis. These minor issues do not detract from what is, overall, a well-balanced and extremely well-written text that maintains a no-nonsense style throughout. How to Go to Therapy is highly recommended as a primer for people who are seeking mental-health treatment. Students of psychotherapy, as well as practitioners who are looking for adjunctive resources for their clients, should also find this book to be a very useful guide to the field of psychotherapy.
From War Neurosis to Holocaust Trauma An Intellectual and Cultural History
This paper outlines a historical and critical survey of the contribution of psychoanalysis and other 'psycho-sciences' to our contemporary understanding of Holocaust trauma. It argues that the theme of mass traumatisation effects originates in the use of psychiatric knowledge and procedures during the First World War. As part of the war machine, psychiatry had special functions in the mobilisation of the masses as well as in the treatment and rehabilitation of those soldiers who suffered from 'shell shock' and later developed 'traumatic neuro-sis' or 'war neurosis'. The main task of psychiatrists at that time was to cure these soldiers as quickly and effectively as possible – in order to send them back to the same dangerous circumstances , which had caused their symptoms in the first place. In treating war neurotics, brutal punitive methods such as painful electric shocks were frequently used. Based on archival sources, and on the correspondence between Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, the application of these methods is illustrated here through the example of a Hungarian military doctor, Viktor Gonda. The majority of army doctors regarded war neurosis as a character deficiency, a sign of a 'feminine' character. It was thought that this kind of 'male hysteria' could also affect 'healthy' soldiers, destroying their will, determination, patriotism, and heroism. By contrast, the psychoanalytic conception of war neurosis developed by Sán-dor Ferenczi in Hungary and by Karl Abraham and Ernst Simmel in Germany was intended to be a humanising alternative to the dominant, mainly 'punishing' and torturous procedures applied by mainstream military psychiatry. Psychoanalysts emphasised the importance of understanding the patient's symptoms, assuming that their explanation originated in the patient's life history and unconscious motives rather than exclusively in external, physical causes. The psychoanalytic approach to war neurosis anticipated later debates on the nature of individual and collective psychological traumata. This paper surveys the impact of the First World War on the development of the theory and technique of psychoanalysis , including the concepts of Freud, Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, Abram Kardiner, and others. After the Second World War, psychoanalysis was preoccupied with the exploration of the 'Nazi mind', the specific psychological and characterological traits of war criminals, their supporters, and their collaborators. This paper argues that the existence of a Holocaust trauma as a separate group of symptoms was for a long time not really acknowledged. The focus only shifted from perpetrators to victims in the 1970s, due to the introduction of the diagnostic category of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) into the vocabulary of psychoanalysis. This paper, however, argues that the concept of PTSD preserved, in some ways, the dominant discourse of First World War psychiatry, continuing, in a subtler way, to stigma-tise or blame the victims.
Psychological responses to war and atrocity: The limitations of current concepts
Social Science & Medicine, 1995
Because of the prevalence of wars, political violence and other forms of man-made disaster in Third World countries many individuals and communities suffer prolonged and often multiple traumas. In Western psychiatry certain conceptions of the response to violence and trauma have been developed, including the widely used category of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We argue that because concepts such as PTSD implicitly endorse a Western ontology and value system, their use in non-Western groups should be, atmost, tentative.