Born in Cyprus, educated first at the University of North Carolina, and now Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, Vamik Volkan, M.D. is a psychoanalyst with an impressive career in international relations that includes nominations for the Pulitzer Prize. This biographical documentary traces Dr. Volkan’s thinking and ideas for dealing with international conflict.
Filmed in areas of human tragedy such as Georgia, Bosnia, Cyprus, Estonia, and Ground Zero, director Mollie Castelloe effectively captures Dr. Volkan’s peacemaking efforts as he meets with many United States presidents and other international leaders. Gerald Fromm, psychoanalyst and president of the International Dialogue Initiative, and Dr. Volkan, president emeritus, narrate much of the film.
Dr. Volkan believes being born in Cyprus, a country exposed to rival invaders, informed his thinking regarding international conflict and that nations have not paid attention to the psychology of human beings. “The old ways of diplomacy will not work well in a world now faced with terrorism, globalism, and migration”, states Dr. Volkan. Dr. Volkan quotes Anwar Sadat as saying: “70% of the trouble between the Arab and Muslim world was psychological."
Taking a psychological approach, Dr. Volkan focuses on “large group identity” to explain conflict. People live in large groups and share certain “sentiments” such as culture, diet, the arts, and history. Since people identify with each other in large groups, other groups may seem less valid, making it easier to go to war with them. Large group identity also includes “shared mourning” and a double image of those who died emerges when a tragic event occurs. The group may choose to create monuments such as the Vietnam Memorial to hold the mourning, or the group may decide on taking revenge or retaliation.
Dr. Volkan visits “hot spots” where horrific events occurred such as Ground Zero, a cemetery in Georgia, a Soviet abandoned nuclear factory in Estonia, a holocaust site, and the Berlin Wall. According to Dr. Volkan, when unfortunate things happen to individuals, people respond with coping mechanisms; but, when a large group is exposed to a horrific event, the trauma may be passed down to the next generation, as occurred with the Palestinian and Jewish people.
Sometimes leaders make use of “chosen traumas” and establish them as markers for large group identity such as the Battle of Wounded Knee, Battle of Culloden, and the fall of Constantinople. For Muslims, the loss of the Caliphate can become an entitlement ideology. Leaders may call up these traumas for political ends, as Milosevic did in Serbia. Dr. Volkan uses a tree model to help resolve disputes between groups. He founds the International Dialogue Initiative, a group of international and multidisciplinary experts to examine conflict. With thought-provoking examples and a constructive outlook for resolving international conflict, this documentary is appropriate for collections in international relations, psychology, and sociology. Aud: H, C.