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THE CONTEXT OF THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROCESS IN POST-SOVIET ESTONIA

The Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, is an interdisciplinary center whose work in conflict resolution requires the collaboration of psychoanalysts, historians, diplomats and other scholars.Over the past decade, CSMHI has been invited to participate in the resolution of conflicts between nations as well as other related ethnonational and factional disputes. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Estonia wished to restore its political independence as well as its psychological independence. CSMHI had participated in other cases with participants from both Russia and Estonia and accordingly became an excellent credible candidate to assist both sides in the process of Estonia’s psychopolitical independence from and co-existence with Russia as its neighbor. The methodology of CSMHI has been described elsewhere. One description of the methodology (see Apprey, 1996) posits four heuristic steps in the conflict resolution process which are meant to be suggestive but not exhaustive or cast in stone. Briefly then, the following steps operate in the methodology of CSMHI:

1) Intensive confidential interviews are conducted with a cross-section of leaders from all constituencies to ensure that CSMHI personnel understand the historical and contemporary concerns facing Estonians and Russians who have chosen to live in Estonia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

2) A series of psychopolitical dialogues between representatives of interested parties (20-30 in large, plenary sessions, to open and close each day of talks, and 8-15 people in small work group sessions) during which lines of communication are opened, concerns shared, and hidden psychological barriers that separate interested parties are brought to the surface, discussed, and ultimately transformed so that they no longer impede negotiation and movement toward common goals. The process often involves recognizing the influence of historical relationships and events, how they recur, how they change function when they are perpetuated under different guises to serve new purposes. This second step is essential to the success of step three.

3) Cooperative development of or investment in specific strategies and projects based on the new understanding of the divisive issues that have surfaced during the dialogues. Projects emerge from psychopolitical dialogue based on newly established coalitions between members, the shared needs and the sense that the implementation of these projects is going to be part of a longer term process of change. In this third step, projects are undertaken jointly by the parties in conflict, and they do so with input from the third party facilitators.

4) The third party (CSMHI) withdraws as the community continues working toward common goals, through dialogues that complement and support ongoing projects. Thus the fourth step involves projects independently undertaken by the groups hitherto in conflict but without input from the third party facilitators.

SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

The philosopher, Mark Taylor (1987), writes in his introduction to Altarity that “the history of society and culture is, in large measure, a history of the struggle with the endlessly complex problems of difference and otherness” (p. xxi). Noting further that this century has been dominated by communism and racism, among other “isms,” he treats the issue of difference as decisively political although it is also of psychological, artistic, philosophical and theological importance. This search for radical otherness and irreducible difference, he insists, obsesses and possesses many of today’s most successful thinkers. In the field of conflict resolution, any conception of the other as fixed or absolute dangerously lends itself to the readiness to dehumanize the other. Nor is the facile notion that “we are one blood” a helpful solution because it poses a threat to a much needed sense of self stability and differentiation. Of even greater threat to participants in conflict is any notion of self as changing or relative because a precipitous readiness to change poses a threat to a group’s identity as well. The dimension of alterity as process and trajectory between absolute alterity and relative alterity, then, is the subject of this paper. Here the dimension of alterity as process of engagement between Self and Other that can potentially make continuity out of the antinomies of absolute and relative alterity will be shown to reveal itself in the arena of conflict enactment and resolution between two feuding factions. I hold the view that Self as agency is an approximation, the Other as absolute a misnomer, and that when Self and Other engage in a process of resolution of conflict, an ambiguous play space opens up fostering an exchange of representations of Self and Other.

WAYSTATIONS OF THE TRAJECTORY FROM ABSOLUTE TO RELATIVE ALTERITY: THE EXAMPLE OF THE SMALL GROUP EXPERIENCE IN THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROCESS IN ESTONIA

Below we shall outline four waystations that typically occupy that epistemic play space of description and conversation between absolute alterity and relative alterity. Then the case of Estonia’s restoration of independence from Russia will be used to amplify the steps in the trajectory that reveal themselves in the conflict resolution process where two parties are involved in a feud.

What group process emerges when native Estonians and Russian speaking residents backed by Russians from the Russian Federation come together to resolve their interethnic conflicts? After seven 4-day meetings over a period of three years, from 1994-1997, the following phases in the evolution of the group process can retrospectively be identified. For the moment, let us use the contents of the seventh meeting to illustrate the phases of the small group sessions of up to fifteen participants. As indicated above, each meeting had plenary sessions at the beginning and at the end of each day for reporting to the larger group, as well as for planning and organizational purposes. At each meeting, there were six small group sessions of one and a half hour’s duration. When one works in small groups with two parties in conflict, the group work typically begins with polarization as a first step.

Under the category of polarization the Other is demonized. The Other is imagined to be a terrible Other. That Other has a marginal status. Preconstructed as dangerous, the Other is posited in close juxtaposition to the subject’s own relatively favored position.

Accordingly, Russians are those who suffer under the hegemony and control of Estonians. They suffer when Estonians inflict alleged “human rights violations” on them.This is the Russian position.

On the Estonian side, the Russian Federation is an obstacle to the fulfillment of Estonian aspirations towards integration into Europe, and in particular, into NATO.

Phase II: Differentiation Within Each Faction, or, Suspending Absolute Alterity: Multiplicity of Positions Within Each Faction

Under the rubric of differentiation within each integral faction or self-same subject system, a second phase follows when facilitators have permitted the process of polarization to take place and have allowed it to assume the necessary function of self definition and clarification of borders between the two sides. Here, differentiation within each side becomes possible because of the emerging recognition of paradoxes within the self-same subject system’s ideological positions. Here, as de Certeau (1984), Dollimore (1991), and Uebel (1996) indicate, the border between participants of each faction are recognized as having a double status of marker of separation and a line of commonality within each side. In this respect “to be against (opposed to) is also to be against (close up, in proximity to) or, in other words, up against” (Dollimore, 1991, p. 229). For example, when Estonians fight for Soviets against Nazis who also have Estonians fighting for them, Estonians are against each other, or opposed to each other. Yet, because both sides are Estonians, they are close to each other or proximal to each other. In short, they are both close to and up against each other.

Now here are more details about differences within each faction beginning with ethnic Russians who live in Estonia. Some feel free to travel to the U.S., get Estonian citizenship, and live freely in Estonia. Others protest against perceived and real hardships caused by Russian recalcitrance against Estonian efforts requiring Russians to pass language tests and fulfill all requirements needed to become citizens of Estonia. This second group of Russians perceive a Russian who quickly integrates into Estonian society as one who does not invest in her Russian origins or culture and is therefore less Russian. In Stalin’s words, such a Russian has become a “rootless cosmopolitan,” says an observer who was once Soviet and now lives in the United States, having been born in Georgia of a Lithuanian father and an Armenian mother.

On the one hand, a now-Westernized, Russian-speaking Estonian is perceived as a threat to some Russians in the Russian Federation and a danger to some Russians who live in Estonia. On the other hand, to some Russians in the Russian Federation, a Westernized Estonian of Russian origin is preferred to the “suffering” Russian in Estonia because she is not a burden to Russia. She is active in transforming her fate and is thus a sharp contrast to “suffering” Russians whose efforts at transforming their situations tend to be relatively passive and somewhat dependent on the promise of Russia to rescue them from the now dominant and independent Estonians.

There are differences between Russians from the Federation who wish to see Russo-Estonians working independently from Russia towards greater integration with Estonians because “Mother Russia is much too busy killing its own children in Chechnya. ”Or “Mother Russia has too many rebuilding problems of its own to take on the problems of ethnic Russians in Estonia. ”In contrast, there are those Russians from the Federation of Russia who avidly want Estonia to change its laws to accommodate ethnic Russians in Estonia.

Just as differences in approach exist among Russians from the Federation and among Russo-Estonians, so do differences exist among Estonian approaches to the restoration of psychological, economic and political independence in Estonia. Accordingly, some Estonians could see themselves giving up the extra forty kilometres of land the 1920 Tartu treaty would return to them. They would give up the struggle for this piece of land for the sake of greater collaboration with Russians. In addition, this group of Estonians would not resist the preservation of the ethnic Russian cultural heritage because they see collaboration at the civic and political level as primary. In contrast, other Estonians want the Russian Federation to recognize the 1920 Tartu treaty so that they can reclaim their forty kilometres of land. To this group, Estonian efforts to collaborate with Russia and with Russo-Estonians amounts to betrayal of Estonia.

Phase III: The Threshold of Border Crossing: From Absolute Alterity to Relative Alterity

In this third waystation of the two sides negotiating and subsequently crossing mental borders, both sides together encounter the trauma and obsession of their historical grievances. Here, the place and function of dialogue as that which creates mental spaces, that which opens up new illusionistic spaces, present themselves. Borderlines open up and become recognized as potential spaces between the two disputing factions. Those gaps or middle spaces which have now become illusionistic spaces for bridge building (Pruyser, 1983), now symbolize exchange and encounter that facilitate an eventual crossing of mental borders. This crossing of mental borders effects the transformation of the trauma and obsession of historical grievances. The third waystation is preeminently a place of playfulness and fantastic metaphorization of conflicting positions admixed with serious dialogue. This crossing of mental borders that transforms trauma and obsession of historical grievances operates in ways where the two sides that had hitherto been polarized now operate conjunctly, and these two sides dialogue in ways where the terms of a binary are correspondent. Here, one term proposes the other for its meaning. The hitherto absolutely Other is integrated to the selfsame subject system through encounter with and resolution of ambivalence. In making complementarities out of antinomies, absence or exclusion simultaneously becomes a presence. It is not until this waystation reaches a peak of metaphorization with both sides contributing to the new imagery and imagining that the establishment of common ground can be trusted. Let us now observe the two groups struggling to transform the second phase into a third phase of rapprochement with trepidation.

A Russian Federation official recognizes that “it is useless to clarify who is more or less Russian. ”After all, “there are 50,000 Estonians in Russia and I know that not all of them want to return to Estonia. Are they Estonian or not?” With this turnaround by a Russian against hard-liners from Estonia comes a series of similar shifts by other participants. Hence, one Estonian psychologist says to another: “perhaps we are waiting for [Russians in Estonia] to form a segregated society. On a conscious level, we say, ‘you are welcome’, but we might want them to really be not like us. ”An Estonian scholar turns to another Estonian scholar to dialogue as follows, “I came to the conclusion that political decision making [in Estonia] carried historical memory, then later Estonian pursuit of Western models followed. We in Estonia would like [Russo-Estonians] to be a Westernized group. ”She would not like Estonians linked to the “suffering” Russo-Estonians who want the Russian Federation to intervene on their behalf. She would rather see more Europeanized and/or Americanized Russo-Estonians. To this Estonian position, an Estonian scholar adds that even though her emphasis had been integration at the civic and political level for the most part, she felt that she and her Estonian colleague were more or less in a similar position. In her words, “we came into the same room through different doors. ”Into this horizon of participants seeking some common ground, an Estonian academic Dean adds the issue of paradox. For him, “the most dangerous thing is uncertainty. ”For him, “it is paradoxical that integration in Estonia creates anxiety. ”He clarifies the anxiety Estonians feel as due to the closeness of Russo-Estonians to Russia. Estonians “can not make a distinction between Russo-Estonians and Russians from the Federation of Russia. Conversely, for many Russo-Estonians integration with Estonians comes perilously close to assimilation. ”For him, there is fear on both sides. Estonians then fear the return of Soviet assassins, as it were, if Russo-Estonians remain too close to Russia. Russo-Estonians, in their turn, fear that integration with Estonians might constitute a loss of their Russian cultural identity and hence a disappearance of who they are. The key to a solution for the Estonian academic is further discussion and clarification of ideological and other positions. There must be joint research work between the two groups of Estonians and Russo-Estonians. To facilitate their working jointly together, he wants Russians in Estonia to know that “integration does not mean assimilation, such as transforming the Russian into the Estonian. Russians should not have to change or exchange ethnicity. ”Addressing Estonians, he wants them not to seek some arbitrary central place where all should converge. All Estonians and all Russo-Estonians must obey Estonian law. Russians from the Federation hear the Estonian academic say: “Do not forget you live in Estonia. ”An Estonian psychologist retorts: “The law is in Estonian language. ”Accordingly, if the Estonian government were to build an Estonian University in the mostly Russian region of Narva, the language medium should be Estonian. The Estonian academic quips: “Content is important, not the language. ”The Estonian psychologist must then clarify what he means by integration: “Integration is like a cocktail, like tomato juice and vodka. If you shake it, it is one way. If you don’t mix, it has another taste.” “Bloody Mary!” states a member of the third party group of facilitators, the Lithuanian-Armenian, born in Georgia who was mentioned previously. We can imagine that he would know from experience, in a developmental way, what living the experience of a mixed “Bloody Mary” would be.

Russo-Estonians are not entirely convinced by Estonian overtures towards an integrated society. A Russo-Estonian physician knows what to expect: “If you obey laws in a blind way, history reminds us of bad consequences. There are bad consequences if laws contradict the life of the common people. ”The academic Dean from Estonia feels he has to defend himself, which he does by saying: “I did not say that Estonian laws are okay. I am not happy with current Estonian laws. The solution is to change the laws, not disobey the laws. ”A Russian director of a philanthropy organization agrees that Russo-Estonians must participate both in obeying legislation and in changing it. To this, the Estonian academic Dean adds that there are many in the Russian community who, according to polls, are more ready to find common ground. It is the Estonians, in his opinion, who would rather wait because they fear the strong connections between Russians in Estonia and Russians in the mother country. “This process,” he concludes, “is good but slow” and to maintain the slow but steady progress he would urge Russian politicians in the Federation of Russia to desist from making inflammatory remarks like the suggestion of imposing an economic embargo on Estonia in retaliation for Estonia’s perceived unwillingness to integrate rapidly Russians in Estonia. As if to confirm that such an embargo would not lead to a constructive solution, a Russian speaking college student who lives in Narva insists that an embargo could only hurt Russians in Estonia because he knows from personal experience how new stringent passport and visa laws are made in Estonia when mother Russia voices her intentions and makes such inflammatory declarations. A vicious cycle is thus created when Russia flexes her muscles. Estonia, in turn, squeezes Russians in Estonia. Russians in Estonia cry foul. Russians in the Federation return to making threats against Estonia. How will the cycle be broken?

In order to demonstrate how this group of Russian officials, Russo-Estonian representatives and Estonians might break the vicious cycle, let us see two levels of attempts by the group to do so. There is a first level of concrete concerns about contemporary political issues and a second level of psychological discussion at which they arrive without input from facilitators. This sequence occurs because during a coffee break the American facilitators decided simply to observe and not interpret, clarify or summarize any statements. Witness in a verbatim form the group’s discussion about the difficulty of crossing mental borders with remarks about how they feel about concrete political issues.

A) First level of concrete discourse:

Russian philanthropist: If we are to go beyond this point [of a vicious cycle], we can set up a joint commission and make a review from both sides, Estonian and Russian. Estonian side should change legislation to fulfill commitments [previously made to Russians in Estonia]. Russia must change its policy.

Estonian scholar: Estonians have internal fears because if they cooperate with you, they can be labeled pro-Soviet, like former KGB officials who have to be registered in Estonia. The problem is that even lorry drivers had to register. There is a sense that someone needs to be offered up as a sacrifice. If we in Estonia make an effort to get the two sides together, we will be seen as traitors.

Estonian college student: [My fellow Estonian college student] T. said, “inside every Estonian, there is an unconscious hate of Russians. ”I don’t feel this kind of hate and I told him. He said, “In that case, you are not the right kind of Estonian.”

Russo-Estonian representative: Our fear is hidden under an artificial fear. Yesterday I saw a program on Russian TV and saw a Russian writer interviewed. He spoke about KGB problems in Russia and Germany. He analyzed a situation similar to that described earlier by Ms. H [an Estonian scholar in the group] where KGB agents were disguised as lorry drivers. By 1980, Estonia was well integrated into Soviet society. Current complicated processes in Russia are not Soviet. The Soviets lost a cozy way of life, and you Estonians are also losing it here. Why is the Russian minority a threat to Estonia?

Russian official (to Russo-Estonian): Soul-digger! (outburst of laughter from the group). I thank you, soul-digger, for a good example of Estonian soul. We Russians are lacking if we don’t have enough sympathy in our souls. An Estonian is less an Estonian if they have a lack of hatred.

Estonian college student: T. said that I support Russians.

Russo-Estonian college student:F. (Russian official) said my decreased sympathy [for suffering Russo-Estonians] makes me less Russian.

Russian philanthropist:This is unfair. You can’t make such a direct-comparison.

Russian official:This is not a feature of nationality. We sometimes overdramatize the significance of ethnicity in our discussion. This is the wrong way, because it becomes destructive. It offends every person if you say “someone is not enough Estonian or Russian” or state a negative feature.

Russo-Estonian physician:  I would like to say something [about fear] to our younger Estonian participant [who had been called less Estonian by a colleague] ... We don’t understand fear in the same way. I feel fear. Estonians under thirty don’t understand fear, and don’t have hate of Russians. Many Estonians have no fear or hate. Young people are one group. There are also country people who had a market with Russia. But fear remains due to Stalinist deportations. Also, Estonia is a small nation, so fear exists and is used in an ideological way. This fear is used as a threat against independence. Formation of independence was extremely emotional. This period of the singing revolution was like a drug. It is comfortable for the bureaucracy of Estonia; writers, intelligentsia, local government.  We need for Russia to stop making errors on Estonia in its public and political statements, and to stop hurting Estonia with such errors, because we Russians in Estonia are hurt in turn. We need to ensure that Estonia will always be independent. A young girl [Estonian or Russian origin] in Estonia needs a good life.

High Russian official: My remark is short, and too late. I have an article here. An Estonian MP says Russians are dishonest and unfaithful, harsh and mean. So he states that Russians have these features in their blood. It is impossible to imagine a Russian MP saying this. In Russia such material cannot be published.

Estonian college student activist: I have this article in my hand also. The author is very radical. The mass media put these articles in newspapers. This increases the imagination in Estonia of the Russians as bad guys. This is ridiculous.

High Russian official (in English): This MP is the author of Estonian Law on citizenship.

Estonian scholar: I resent being identified with this Estonian. I won’t let you get out of this easily. If you think that we in Estonia glorify this and the pro-Chechnya message, you are wrong.

Estonian psychologist (speaking in Russian now): I feel that this article insults just as Zhirinovsky insults.

So, they end this sequence of dialogue with each side distancing themselves from extremists in Estonia and in Russia as a means of breaking the vicious cycle. However, after this sequence a long and uncharacteristic silence of about ten minutes duration follows. Group members fidget very uncomfortably. Out of this silence emerged a second level of discourse.

B) Second Level of Discourse at a Deeper Psychological Level:
Metaphorization and Integration of Adaptive Solutions

Russo-Estonian physician: In this group, silence means something. In such a moment, a future policeman is born.

Russian official: His name is responsibility.

Russian philanthropist: Let’s be silent some more. (Laughter from the group).

Former Soviet diplomat, now member of American group: Maurice, can I interfere? [He witholds further comment]

American facilitator (other than Maurice): You can add, not interfere ... [using metaphor of Estonians from previous meeting] This reminds me of a wife who doesn’t trust her big and strong husband. She wants him to recognize that he loves her every day, otherwise she has fear and anxiety. She cannot sleep because of the absence of trust. Her husband needs to be more generous, she thinks.

Russian philanthropist: They are divorced. That is the problem.

Russo-Estonian physician: A woman loves in one way. She raises the children, loves them, and hugs them. This mother raises in one way, and father raises, and punishes, in another.

Estonian scholar: This is not a nasty kid who should be controlled. He is elected by others, which Russians worry about. We worry about it too.

Russo-Estonian physician: Parents must assume more responsibility and accountability when they bear more children.

Estonian scholar: What do you do with a wife who must marry another man, but keep good relations with the ex-husband?

High Russian official: The problem remaining is that of children.

Estonian psychologist: I would add that even if remarriage occurs, the first couple wants to stay together.

Russian official: All your talk of family relations reminds me that the USSR was called a big family; a family of relations. Such complicated relations must be regulated within a bigger family. This is confirmed by the fact that big families can regulate. Estonia has lost the opportunity to be regulated by a bigger family. Maybe you should remember the positive experience and come back to the family.

Russian philanthropist (to his compatriot):Unfortunately, it was not all positive. Many parts were negative.

Estonian psychologist: That is why we want a divorce.

Russian official: We can still use this experience in solving today’s problems.

Russian philanthropist: Estonians had a negative experience. The marriage was coercive from the start. The husband was so severe. He tried to baptize in his own religion. [The consequence of his despotism was that] the husband became weaker with age. The wife escaped and found shelter with others. He tried to convince her to return.

At this second level of discourse, an internal policeman is born, constructed to solve a family feud, as it were.

Phase IV: The Establishment of Ethical and Pragmatic Solutions

In this final waystation of the creation of new and adaptive solutions, ethical positions of trial actions of mutual responsibility emerge. These ethical positions lead to pragmatic projects as indices of internalization of new and generalizable adaptive solutions.

Accordingly, toward the end of our four-day meetings, the different sides made multiple suggestions about what could be done to mitigate or reduce tensions between Russians and Estonians. Some suggestions were realistic, others unrealistic. However, the most common and repeated suggestion was to let the dialogue continue to occur between the different groups of representatives. One step that was intended to break the vicious cycle of inflammatory remarks from Russia and Estonia had already been taken in the course of our work. Between the penultimate session of the third day and the morning of the fourth and last day, the Estonian psychologist had already e-mailed for publication a response to his fellow Estonian, the nationalist Member of Parliament whose newspaper article had inflamed passions in Russia and embarrassed Estonians. The tone and current of the MP’s article was destructively aggressive and needed to be abated, tamed and transformed. The e-mail was intended to balance the MP’s views.

RETURNING TO THE DYNAMIC(S) BEHIND THE FOUR PHASES OF THE CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUP PROCESS

It was indicated early in this paper that four typical phases present themselves in the evolution of the conflict resolution group. It was indicated further that these phases turn around the issue of vicissitudes of alterity. Let us now identify the dynamic that links the phases with the vicissitudes of alterity, from absolute to relative alterity and to the exchange of Self and Other that shows itself in the metaphorization which in turn permits a credible consensus building process.

In the first phase of polarization where one group may demonize the other in implicit and/or explicit ways, it is essential for the facilitator to recognize that the exorcism of the Other is a first and necessary step. It is necessary for the distinct purpose of defining each group’s identity and for situating oneself with a clearer sense of who the subject is; one may know for the moment who the enemy is or at least who the enemy is thought to be. If this part of the process is accepted as adaptive to begin with, the participants are then able to reveal the anxiety that accompanies each polarized position. In a word, by accepting the initial wall that is built around each faction, each feuding party may then borrow strength from the facilitator(s) to examine how anxiously the wall gets built. The initial dynamic of demonization of the Other ironically needs to emerge only to be discarded to facilitate entry into the next and second phase in the evolution of the group.

In the second phase when differentiation within each polar faction emerges the most helpful dynamic that permits the group to evolve is that of paradox. For example, when Estonians recognize that they were forced to fight on both sides of World War II, a new level of thoughtful reflection replaces the need to demonize the Other. Likewise, Russians come to recognize their heterogeneity. In the process they remind the group that some Russian-speaking Estonians, such as Russian Jewry and Old Believers, came to Estonia to flee from Soviet oppression. Others, however, were KGB agents and retired former military officers of the Soviet era. Paradoxes begin to create a new level of empathic reflection within each polar faction as well as across the psychological ramparts each side had created earlier.

In the third phase of crossing mental borders, the dynamic of metaphorization in the dialogue between the feuding parties opens up new spaces where new ideas can be played with. Playing and bridgebuilding as illusionistic processes promote new representations of feuding and consensus building. The inadequation of describing Russians as wild, non-European Asians who might eat up the enemy gives way to joining with them to seek mutually beneficial solutions. The inadequation of seeing Estonians as vengeful human rights abusers gives way to the recognition of the Other as needing to include Russians in the building of a greater civic society and a democratic country. Of course, the sources of the original conflicts remain, because history cannot be changed, but the participants have the courage to encounter their conflicts. The result of the metaphor-driven and meaningful dialogue that emerges is that there is now a replacement of concrete passions by a new order of designations to which all parties can relate. All parties can relate to the policeman called responsibility, family feud, marital discord, divorce, step-parenting, and so on and so forth. Accordingly, humor and thought can converge to promote a higher level of engaging each other in a situation of conflict as they seek building blocks for consensus building. This is the journey toward a condition that Vamik Volkan (1992) has aptly termed “a vaccination” where they recognize their conflicts, are able to engage each other, but the conflict is no longer malignant. In the fourth phase, they are emotionally free to make ethical statements and join forces to create mutually beneficial projects.

REFERENCES

Apprey, M. 1996.Heuristic Steps for Negotiating Ethno-National Conflicts: Vignettes from Estonia. New Literary History, Vol. 27(2): 199-212.

De Certeau, M. 1984. “Spacial Stories,” in The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Randall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Dollimore, J. 1991. Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde/Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Clarendon.

Pruyser, P. 1983. The Play of the Imagination: Toward a Psychoanalysis of Culture. New York: International Universities Press.

Taylor, M.C. 1987. Altarity. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Uebel, M. 1996. Locating Utopia: The Orient and the Cultural Imaginary of the Middle Ages. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia.

Volkan, V.D. 1992 Ethnonationalistic Rituals: An Introduction. Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 4(1): 3-19.

MAURICE APPREY, Ph.D. is Professor, Department of Psychiatric Medicine and Associate Dean, School of Medicine, University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is the first author of Intersubjectivity, Project Identification and Otherness (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press). He is also the English language translator of Georges Politzer’s Critique des Fondements de la Psychologie (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press).