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THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL MIND AND HUMAN INTERACTION. FULL REFERENCE IS AS FOLLOWS:
Volkan, V. (1999). The tree model: a comprehensive psychopolitical approach to unofficial diplomacy and the reduction of ethnic tension. Mind and Human Interaction, 10: 142-206.
To cite particular passages or pages, please contact us for a hard copy of the original published version. (email: mind@virginia.edu, phone: 434-924-2844).
The Tree Model:
A Comprehensive Psychopolitical Approach to
Unofficial Diplomacy and the
Reduction of Ethnic Tension
Vamik Volkan
Vamik D. Volkan, M.D. is the founder and director of the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine. He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute and a member of the International Negotiation Network (INN) of The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. In spring 2000, he will be an Inaugural Fellow at the Yitzhak Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Joy Boissevain, CSMHI’s Program Director, Managing Editor, and a participant in its five-year Estonian-Russian project, contributed to the writing of this paper.
Introduction
This paper focuses on what has come to be known as unofficial diplomacy. After offering some definitions and outlining the methods of several key practitioners in the field, it will present in detail the theory and methodology of one particular approach to unofficial diplomacy—referred to as the “Tree Model”—developed by the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine. This comprehensive methodology describes a process undertaken by an interdisciplinary, neutral, third party to address problems between antagonist groups. The facilitating team includes members from the fields of diplomacy, history, psychoanalysis, and others. Psychoanalytic insights about large-group issues are at the core of the Tree Model methodology.
The Tree Model is based on the assumption that group identity issues and rituals are involved in every aspect of the political, economic, social, legal, or military relationships between large (i.e. ethnic or national) groups, especially when the groups are under stress or engaged in protracted conflicts. In such situations, psychological issues contaminate the real world issues and create resistances to peaceful and adaptive solutions. These psychological “poisons,” both conscious and unconscious, must be removed before constructive communication and negotiation can take place between opposing groups and before the easing of tensions can be institutionalized and maintained for the long term.
The rise of unofficial diplomacy
Some aspects of diplomacy have changed in the last century, and some have not. In many ways diplomacy today barely resembles the craft practiced by statesmen at the end of the 19th century. Among the reasons for this we can count the efforts of the United Nations, the evolution of rapid communication and instant media coverage, concerns for human rights wherever they are violated, and economic globalization. In the midst of the Cold War, Sir Harold Nicolson (1963) pointed out that through the rise of “democratic” concepts of international relations, small elite groups of men can no longer be the only players in diplomacy; leaders, statesmen, and high-level bureaucrats are now obliged to explain themselves to the public constituency within their states.
In the international environment, there are more meetings, more negotiations, and more treaties, as well as more public involvement and media coverage. Former Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban (1983) noted that the role of private individuals and organizations has encroached even further into diplomacy’s once-sacred territory. What has come to be known as “unofficial” or “Track Two” diplomacy (Montville, 1987) has become more visible on the international scene. Eban writes, “Quakers, church leaders, heads of peace research institutions, professors, members of parliaments and journalists have all attempted to solve or alleviate conflicts which have eluded the efforts of officially accredited emissaries” (p. 386). Although such unofficial diplomacy has proliferated in the last two or three decades, Eban traces its roots in the United States even further back: President Dwight D. Eisenhower once remarked that private citizens who enjoyed the confidence of their governments might help prepare the way for official negotiations.
Eisenhower’s attitude was unusual; most leaders then thought that unofficial diplomats were “troublesome meddlers,” even if they had good intentions. After the breakdown of the 1959 Eisenhower-Kruschev summit, Eisenhower supported the Dartmouth Conference—a series of unofficial meetings between influential Americans and Soviets that had originally been organized by Norman Cousins, then editor of The Saturday Review. (The name of this series of meetings came from the fact that the first meeting took place at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.)
The evolution of the Dartmouth Conference has been described by Harold Saunders (1990), an Assistant Secretary of State during the Carter administration who participated in the Dartmouth Conference and who is presently on CSMHI’s Advisory Board. The Conference paralleled the growth and increasing influence of one type of unofficial diplomacy. While early meetings were an informal forum for communication and the exchange of information, in the early 1980s participants decided to establish small task forces with a sharper focus and also agreed to meet between plenary sessions. In 1986, a political relations task force was established which influenced the processes of glasnost and perestroika. Similarly, the Pugwash Conference became important when the Soviets began sending scholars with political clout. Both conferences functioned as bridges in diplomatic negotiation, especially between the US and the Soviet Union.
During the Cold War, economic entrepreneurs were also involved in the diplomatic process as unofficial participants (Levinson, 1979; Goldman, 1975; Berman and Jones, 1977). For example, Armand Hammer, of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, had ties with the Soviets dating back to the 1920s and functioned as a link between the two superpowers. There were also private negotiations, such as those involving Wolfgang Vogel, a German involved in the East-West spy swap that included the release of Anatoly Scharansky. Such private negotiations received a wider audience when they involved news media.
News reporting kept official diplomacy, especially in democratic countries, “out in the open” as much as possible. Some reporters themselves operated as unofficial diplomats. John Scali, a wire correspondent, was involved in “backstage” mediation during the Cuban missile crisis. As he later reported (Scali, 1987), on October 26, 1962, four days into the crisis, Scali received a telephone call from a man identifying himself as Mr. X, who was, in fact, a KGB colonel named Aleksander Fomin in the Soviet Embassy in Washington. This call made Scali a major player in the crisis since he became an intermediary in the exchange of proposals for its solution.
It was not only the Soviet-US or East-West relationships that attracted involvement by unofficial diplomats. Another noteworthy newsman, Columbia Broadcasting System’s (CBS) Walter Cronkite, is credited with bringing together, by satellite, Israel’s Menachim Begin and Egypt’s Anwar el-Sadat.
By the late 1970s, unofficial diplomacy had become more organized. Representatives of peace institutions and “professors”—as Eban (1983) called the academics involved—had gained actual experience in helping to shape policy. Herbert Kelman of Harvard University began discreetly bringing together high level Arabs and Israelis for dialogues which he called “interactive problem solving” workshops (Kelman, 1991). From 1979 to 1986, a team from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) conducted a series of unofficial meetings between Arabs (mainly Egyptians and Palestinians) and Israelis in which I participated (Julius, 1991; Montville, 1991; Volkan, 1988).
Methods and definitions of
unofficial diplomacy
Soon after participating in these Arab-Israeli dialogues, I founded the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI), an interdisciplinary center at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine focused on unofficial diplomacy and large-group psychology. CSMHI’s core faculty included veterans (psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and diplomats) of the APA-sponsored Arab-Israeli meetings. Our first task was to answer the question: “What is unofficial diplomacy?” In 1987, I organized a conference at the University of Virginia to ponder the subject and invited many practitioners, well known for their work in the field, to offer their insights and to describe their respective operating techniques. The list included participants from the APA-sponsored Arab-Israeli dialogues, such as psychiatrist Demetrios Julius, and former diplomats such as Joseph Montville and Harold Saunders. Among other attendees were John W. Burton, Edward E. Azar, Herbert C. Kelman, and Richard T. Arndt (see Volkan, Julius and Montville, 1990; Volkan, Montville, Julius, 1991).
In the course of our extensive discussions on this subject, I concluded that there was no one definition of unofficial diplomacy but rather many individual approaches to it. Some included psychological concepts; many others did not, though they were significant in their non-traditional and human-oriented approaches to international relations. John Burton, who was the permanent Head of the Australian Foreign Office in 1947 and High Commissioner for Ceylon in 1955, was influenced by theories of “human needs” (Lederer, 1980) in which societal conditions sometimes called for radical institutional changes. Burton (1991) describes “conflict” as:
a relationship in which each party perceives the other’s goals, values, interests, or behavior to be antithetical to its own. The term embraces, first, the relationships between parties to a dispute, their perceptions and misperceptions, their shared and separate values and their goals and motivations; and second, the political, social, economic, and institutional environment in which the dispute takes place (p. 82).
Burton believes that human participants in conflict situations are “compulsively struggling in their respective institutional environments at all social levels to satisfy primordial and universal needs—needs such as security, identity, recognition and development” (Burton, 1991, p. 83). His conflict resolution attempts, therefore, address demands for institutional reorganization, rather than for altered attitudes and enforced conformity within given norms of behavior. Burton sees two types of disputes: “interest-based disputes” and “value- or needs-based disputes.” Interest-based disputes are not so deep rooted “for no one wishes to die in a fight over wages as such” (Burton, 1991, p. 83). Burton contends that a variety of legal, arbitration, and other dispute resolution techniques can deal with this type of conflict. Value-based disputes, on the other hand, reflect demands that are not negotiable. According to Burton, it is impossible to barter with values and needs.
He writes that sufficient coercion or bargaining power sometimes leads to suppression and “settles” value- or needs-based disputes, but it does not resolve them. He concludes that the “institutionalization of conflict resolution would remove authoritative controls, but at the same time it would push societies toward a means of nonauthoritative social control” (Burton, 1991, p. 87). Psychoanalytic insights have little or no relevance to Burton’s ideas since his approach is analytical but does not concern unconscious factors or individual and large-group psychology. He makes no remarks, therefore, on the need to remove unconscious resistances to institutional reorganization.
Burton’s approach has been the focus of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR) at George Mason University in Northern Virginia where Burton worked in the mid- to late 1980s. ICAR has expanded on Burton’s ideas and has become a well-known training site for aspiring unofficial diplomats (Mitchell and Banks, 1996). This training adopts aspects of psychology, but not psychoanalysis.
Herbert C. Kelman, a social psychologist, who was a professor of social ethics at Harvard University when he attended the 1987 gathering at CSMHI, drew heavily on the pioneering efforts of Burton and his associates with their focus on human needs. Another major influence on Kelman’s thinking, however, was Jerome Frank, a psychiatrist who had studied social processes and utilized many psychoanalytic concepts. He and an associate (Frank and Ascher, 1951) borrowed the idea of corrective emotional experience from psychoanalysts Franz Alexander and Thomas French (1946), who were influential psychoanalytic teachers in the US in the 1940s. The term corrective emotional experience was first used in the clinical setting to describe when an analyst deliberately behaves differently from his/her patient’s childhood figures. For a patient who is in the midst of “transference neurosis” and expects the analyst to behave according to his/her experiences with important figures during childhood, this corrective emotional experience helps him/her “learn” that certain events can lead to different and more adaptive outcomes. At the time, Alexander and French were harshly criticized for their ideas by traditional psychoanalysts. Nevertheless, Frank and Ascher (1951) used this concept in their group psychotherapy sessions and, in turn, influenced Kelman’s work. Kelman used this approach when he unofficially brought together representatives of opposing large groups, especially Cypriot Turks and Cypriot Greeks and Palestinians and Israelis. He was careful to point out that this work in the international arena diverged from a purely therapeutic model in fundamental ways. He wrote:
The purpose of problem-solving workshops and their related activities is to produce changes at the system level—i.e., at the level of the larger conflict system. They are specifically designed to have an impact on the political debate and the policy process in the conflicting societies. From our point of view, the changes in individual attitudes and perceptions that we hope to produce are primarily a means toward change at the system level, rather than an end in themselves (Kelman, 1991, p. 153).
Participants come to problem-solving dialogues to learn about intergroup conflict. The facilitators, who remain non-judgmental, do not attempt to adjudicate differences between the opposing parties and do not give advice. They do not attempt to generate “interpersonal trust among the participants across national lines. Such an effort would neither be realistic nor even desirable” (Kelman, 1991, p. 153). Rather, the facilitators remain neutral and encourage a common trust in them, as a neutral third party. Kelman’s approach, as a general conceptualization, is close to CSMHI’s technique, but does not consider several elements that are key to CSMHI’s methodology. As will be described later in this paper, such elements include: unconscious resistances to change; shared and unconscious mental defense mechanisms—such as projections, displacements, and reversals of affect—that mitigate against opposing groups’ changing opinions and positions; a psychoanalytically-informed understanding of the components of large-group identity and rituals (Volkan, 1999a, b, c); and an interdisciplinary facilitating team.
Joseph Montville (1987), a former diplomat, now Director of the Preventive Diplomacy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a CSMHI faculty member, uses the term track two diplomacy for a specific type of unofficial diplomacy that developed in part out of his participation in the APA-sponsored Arab-Israeli dialogue series. It consists of informal interactions between influential members of opposing groups with the goal of developing strategies to influence public opinion and to organize resources of manpower and material in ways favorable to the resolution of conflict. Montville clearly takes psychological issues into account, particularly regarding the impact of the burden of history on parties in conflict. Other practitioners, such as former ambassador John McDonald and his associates, use the term multitrack diplomacy to describe similar unofficial projects (McDonald and Diamond, 1996).
Harold Saunders, now Director of International Affairs at the Kettering Foundation, bases his conceptualization of unofficial diplomacy on what he calls “sustained dialogues.”
Just as governments have used diplomacy and formal mediation or negotiation as their instruments for dealing with conflict, sustained dialogue is the instrument that citizens outside government use for addressing the human dimension of conflict to change their relationships (Saunders, 1999, p xxiii).
He has noted that sustained dialogues, if successfully facilitated, progress through several stages. The first stage is the participants’ decision to engage in the dialogue. In the second stage, participants “map” or identify key issues in the relationship between the opposing groups. In the third, they probe the dynamics of this relationship and may begin to see ways of changing it. Fourth, the opposing representatives design scenarios that could actually change the conflictual nature of the relationship, and finally, once the will to change has been generated and the specific means to change have been considered, the scenarios are put into action. Saunders thus believes that a meaningful dialogue can be introduced in which effective communication between high-level participants at an informal level can lead to real change. He is careful to note that in the context of the total process, which takes years, the individual stages, “do not have rigidly defined boundaries. Each may take more than one meeting. Participants move back and forth across the stages when they need to update a changing situation, rethink an earlier question or tackle ‘new problems’” (Saunders, 1999, p. 254).
As is apparent in the above descriptions, a variety of theoretical and practical approaches to unofficial diplomacy have been and continue to be used in a broad spectrum of international activities. In this essay, it is beyond my aim to review other unofficial diplomacy approaches in detail, however, without presuming to make a thorough comparison of the merits of each, some general descriptions can serve as guidelines to the field. (For further information on comparing different methods, see Ronald Fisher’s (1997) study.)
Guidelines to the field
While there was no neutral third party involved in the Dartmouth Conference series described above, other such gatherings of representatives of opposing large groups are often facilitated by a neutral team of “unofficial diplomats.” The neutral group acts as a catalyst and arranges for the antagonists to become acquainted and discuss options. Such meetings typically avoid publicity, often being held in some secluded place; great care is taken to insure that participants do not suffer criticism from their own groups or attract threats of reprisal from others. The hope is that an unofficial but influential network can be established between the opposing parties and that the findings of each meeting will be effectively conveyed to the appropriate envoys of each government or authority represented. At this initial juncture, although by definition the participants come to the meetings with opposing views, much is gained by the opportunity to meet informally and establish workable personal relationships. Since the participants are usually influential members of society, any favorable modification of their views and/or any human warmth and empathy generated during the meeting can potentially influence government policies and, at the very least, reduce individual aggressive attitudes. In short, the effort is to humanize situations that have become marked by intractable hatred and scorn.
Saunders (1990) has called attention to the dangers and limitations as well as the value of contributions by unofficial individuals or organizations, whether they work with influential members of the opposing large groups or focus on grassroots movements. Among the dangers is the possibility that unofficial persons might represent themselves as authorities officially connected with their governments. On the other hand, Saunders believes that organized unofficial diplomacy gatherings can play a crucial role in providing “ideas in the air” (Saunders, 1991, p. 61). Once an official diplomatic policy has been developed, leaders and other decision-makers do not usually seek advice from those outside their circles. But, if a policy does not work when it is implemented, leaders may then listen for ideas in the air, that is, alternatives put forth in less official circles. Saunders suggests that Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech to the United Nations in December 1988 reflected ideas in the air that were articulated during the Dartmouth Conference dialogues.
As Abba Eban (1983) notes, “What is certain is [that] there is little to be gained from unofficial contacts that are totally alienated from the official communications system” (p. 386). There must be a point at which unofficial diplomacy comes in contact with the official diplomatic world. This critical meeting point between unofficial and official initiatives can be reached in different ways. One method is a “trickle up” approach in which a neutral group initially brings together influential but not necessarily government-affiliated persons from opposing groups—newsmen, academics, mayors, civic leaders, and personal friends of government officials or statesmen. Successful interaction among the participants from one group, and with those of the opposing group, attracts the attention of diplomats, elected and appointed officials, and high-ranking bureaucrats, who then may be invited to participate in an unofficial capacity. Another avenue is disseminating the proceedings of dialogues through various media or through official reports drafted by unofficial participants.
Whatever they are called by their practitioners, these unofficial methods are not substitutes for official diplomacy and do not seek to be considered as such. Nevertheless, unofficial diplomatic efforts can be very useful to political leaders, policy makers, and governmental organizations. Unofficial diplomacy that utilizes a neutral third party team to facilitate communications between groups can be especially effective in dealing with long-standing, interethnic or international conflict. The idea is to create an atmosphere where official diplomacy can have greater success. The hostility between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East, between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, and between Turks and Greeks in Cyprus are only a few examples of chronic conflicts where unofficial diplomacy has eased and can continue to ease tensions. Although the shared anxiety involved in each conflict has a basis in political, economic and legal issues, each has also become “psychologized” and involves the large-group identities and rituals of the opposing sides. And it is precisely these psychological aspects that so often thwart official diplomatic efforts toward effective communication and lasting solutions.
THE TREE MODEL
As noted above, the work of most unofficial diplomacy practitioners centers around opening and maintaining a dialogue between opposing ethnic or other large groups, whether they are in neighboring states or within one state. The nature and content of such sustained dialogues, as well as the related actions they attempt to facilitate, vary from one practitioner team to another. Similarly, participants in these dialogues range, according to the practitioner’s methodology and the political realities involved, from grassroots individuals to decision-makers in a community or government. Yet, practically every attempt to assist in the easing of tensions and the transformation of conflicts faces some common problems: After a dialogue is initiated, how can a polarized, intractable conflict be transformed into a shared relationship? How does one institutionalize the progress that has been made and prevent stagnation or slipping backward? How can one transfer the insights from intergroup dialogues into concrete actions affecting the societies involved? What can be done to maintain peaceful coexistence and neighborliness among opposing groups after the facilitators leave the scene?
This section will describe a comprehensive approach to reducing tensions between large groups and to building institutions that sustain the progress made and promote peaceful coexistence. Nicknamed the Tree Model, this approach was developed by CSMHI and uses psychoanalytic insights about large-group identity and the ritualistic interactions between large groups (Volkan 1999a, b, c).
Experiential background
The evolution of the Tree Model was a slow process and grew out of the experiences of CSMHI faculty members individually and as a team in a variety of long-term projects in the field.
Two years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, CSMHI reached an agreement with Soviet colleagues to study Soviet-US relations. Plans called for a series of meetings in Moscow and Charlottesville between an interdisciplinary CSMHI team, Soviet psychologists from the Institute of Psychology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and Soviet diplomats from the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy. For the first time, the focus of major unofficial diplomatic activities was on understanding the psychology between the two superpowers. These dialogues occurred at an unusual time for the Soviet Union, soon after Mikhail Gorbachev had introduced glasnost and perestroika. We were also able to see, first hand, warning signs presaging the collapse of the USSR. When the Baltic Republics were making moves toward regaining independence, the CSMHI team was invited to the Communist Party Headquarters (Central Committee) for consultation. It was clear to us then that the uprising of ethnic and national sentiments in the Soviet Union had caught Gorbachev and his entourage by surprise. They had been operating under the assumption that by initiating perestroika and glasnost, they would be seen as the “good guys” and that ethnic groups in the Soviet Union would stay united and move together toward democracy. The last meeting in the CSMHI-Soviet dialogue series took place just two months before the collapse of the USSR. It brought representatives of many Soviet Republics and autonomous provinces to the Diplomatic Academy in Moscow for a four-day marathon workshop that I conducted on the concept of ethnicity. Yuri Urbanovich, then on the faculty of the Diplomatic Academy, and since then a Visiting Scholar at CSMHI, played a key role in arranging this workshop. Looking back, it was like a last ditch effort to understand the “power of ethnicity” and to preserve ethnic harmony in the Soviet Union. Sensing the inflamed ethnic and national sentiments in that room, however, I knew then that our role in this historic event was too little, too late.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, CSMHI conducted a series of psychopolitical dialogues in Estonia between influential Estonians, Russians, and leaders of Russian speakers in Estonia (Neu and Volkan, 1999). The meetings were convened in collaboration with The Carter Center of Atlanta and lasted two years. Following these dialogues, CSMHI developed grassroots community building projects to serve as models for peaceful coexistence between Estonians and Russian-speakers in Estonia (one-third of Estonia’s 1.5 million inhabitants are Russian-speakers1).
Other CSMHI projects included an investigation of the collective psychopolitical and social processes in post-invasion Kuwait (Howell, 1993, 1995; Saathoff, 1995, 1996), under the leadership of Amb. (ret.) W. Nathaniel Howell, now Director of the Center for Global Policy Studies at the University of Virginia, and CSMHI’s Resident Diplomat. Joseph Montville and I examined the psychopolitical situation in Romania in 1993 (Volkan, 1997). In 1998, CSMHI Board member and Princeton historian Norman Itzkowitz and I joined Joyce Neu of The Carter Center’s Conflict Resolution Program in an investigation into the legacy of Enver Hoxha’s totalitarian rule in Albania. We studied the societal split between those who were associated with the torturers and those who were related to the torture victims. For the past two years, I have conducted a series of dialogues among Croatian, Serbian, and Bosniak mental health professionals, who themselves were traumatized by the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. These meetings aimed to help them cope with their own traumas so that they would be in a better position to help persons from their respective communities who were psychologically damaged by the wars. Other CSMHI activities have included dialogues with influential representatives of opposing large groups, such as Greeks and Turks.
CSMHI faculty and staff have also worked on large-group interactions in the US. One such effort, led by CSMHI faculty member and psychoanalyst Maurice Apprey and Program Director Joy Boissevain, focused on an inner city neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia and its African-American community.
In 1998-99, a team from CSMHI conducted a project in the Republic of Georgia. CSMHI Assistant Director J. Anderson Thomson (psychiatrist), International Scholar Yuri Urbanovich (former diplomat), faculty member Gregory Saathoff (psychiatrist), and I traveled to Georgia several times to meet with Georgian mental health workers who work with some of the 300,000 persons who remain internally displaced (i.e., refugees in their own country) more than seven years after the wars between Georgians and Abkhazians and Georgians and South Ossetians. While we attempted to understand the psychology of such traumatized societies, we also conducted psychopolitical dialogues between Georgian and South Ossetian mental health workers and teachers.
This brief outline of CSMHI’s extensive experience is mentioned here to emphasize that the Tree Model is based more on what we have learned from practice in the field than on abstract theories of large-group psychology taken from psychoanalysis and elsewhere.
General considerations
In the Tree Model approach to unofficial diplomacy, psychoanalysts participate as members of the facilitating team and bring to the dialogue process clinical expertise in discerning unconscious aspects of the conflict and in coaxing such aspects to the surface for discussion. In addition to what they bring from other experiences in the field (such as those outlined above), the psychoanalysts’ contributions to the process center on two interrelated issues. First, psychoanalysts bring to the team knowledge of large-group psychology, including the meaning of unconscious processes within a large group, within the interactions between opposing groups, and between leaders and followers. In the Tree Model approach, the “values and needs” that John Burton and Herbert Kelman refer to thus include the investigation of unconscious motivations. Second, psychoanalysts bring to the dialogues specialized clinical skills in listening, intervention, and interpretation.
One of the unique aspects of the Tree Model is that it is carried out by an interdisciplinary facilitating team that includes not only psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, but also former diplomats, historians, and other social and behavioral scientists. With such a diverse team, the complexities of real world political, economic, legal, and military issues are examined in their own context, and also through a psychoanalytic lens. Thus attention is paid to unconscious (as well as conscious) psychological factors which may blur realistic considerations, create resistances to change, lead to irrational actions, and impede progress toward adaptive negotiations. It is by removing such “psychological poisons” that more realistic discussion of the issues becomes possible.
The Tree Model describes a process that grows over time and branches out like a tree. It is rooted in a diagnosis of the situation by the facilitating team, and continues through a series of psychopolitical dialogues between members of the opposing groups (the trunk), first within the dialogue itself, and then in increasingly larger groups at the community, governmental, and societal levels. The aim of this stage is to reduce poisonous emotions and resistances to change (both conscious and, more importantly, unconscious), and thus allow more realistic discussions and strategy planning to take place by the members of the opposing groups. The last stage entails implementing practical projects and building institutions (branches of the tree) to be left behind when the facilitators depart, so that the insights and new attitudes gained from the dialogues will continue to grow and develop on their own.
Understanding large-group identity and large-group rituals is central to the Tree Model, for it is by recognizing and articulating the often unconscious dynamics described by these concepts that one can begin to see how to transform conflictual relationships into peaceful negotiations and/or coexistence.
Large group identity
Every individual has many identities and sub-identities. He/she may be an amateur photographer, a labor union member, or a wealthy businesswoman, but he/she also has a more fundamental core identity. This core identity develops early in childhood and is experienced by the individual as a “persistent sense of sameness within the self” (Erikson 1956, p. 57) that exists despite the fact that it shares some characteristics with other people. (See Akhtar, 1992 for a comprehensive review and description of individual identity).
What differentiates an individual’s core identity from such sub-identities as profession or socioeconomic class is the degree of anxiety that an individual experiences when he or she perceives danger to this core identity. Changing or losing one’s subidentity as a member of a particular profession, for example, may induce anxiety, but it is not threatening in a life and death sense. By contrast, as we know from the clinical setting, losing one’s core identity—such as in acute schizophrenia in adults—creates an overwhelming psychic shock. The psychological death of identity is profoundly terrifying, and people will go to extreme lengths to protect against such an event. A schizophrenic, for example, will create a delusional identity in order to escape this terror.
An individual’s core identity also includes the large-group identity that links a person to thousands or millions of others within an ethnic, national or other large group. (For more on how this link develops from childhood on, see Volkan, 1998, 1997, 1999a, b.) To visualize the workings of large-group identity, we can imagine it as a large canvas tent housing an entire ethnic or national group: men and women, rich and poor, young and old. The pole in the center that supports the tent is the large group’s leader, whose main concern is to keep the tent’s canvas, the large group’s identity, from collapsing. Although it is part of our core identity, clearly, we do not go around every day consciously sensing our large-group identity. It is like breathing—we don’t think about it until something happens to put it at risk, such as when we develop pneumonia. Similarly, with large-group (or individual) identity: if it is threatened, and the tent shakes, everyone becomes very aware of it. Under such stressful situations, repairing, maintaining, and redefining the large-group identity become the primary task of everyone under the tent.
A large group’s identity is composed of a number of elements, which one must understand in order to be able to recognize when a group under threat is acting to reinforce its identity. By understanding the often unconscious forces at work in a large group under stress, one can begin to make sense of tactics that may otherwise seem irrational or out of proportion (ethnic cleansing, for example). I have articulated elsewhere seven elements that make up a large group’s identity (Volkan, 1999a, b), however, for the purposes of this paper, I will concentrate on two in particular: chosen traumas and chosen glories.
Chosen traumas and chosen glories
A chosen trauma is the mental representation of an event in a group’s history in which the group suffered catastrophic loss, humiliation, and helplessness at the hands of a neighboring group. When members of the victim group are unable to mourn such losses or reverse their humiliation, they pass on to their offspring the images of their injured selves and even the object images of those who hurt them. All such images contain references to the same calamity. These representations of the calamity link together all the individuals in a large group. The next generation is given, unconsciously as well as consciously, tasks to carry out for their ancestors, such as completing the mourning process or reversing humiliation. Thus a transgenerational transmission of trauma takes place, and the mental representation of the trauma, now highly mythologized, becomes a marker of the ethnic group’s identity (Volkan, 1997, 1999a, b).
Chosen traumas are reactivated with affect when a large group is under stress and an enemy threatens it. In such circumstances, political leaders either knowingly or instinctively inflame emotions concerning chosen traumas. (For an example describing how Slobodan Miloševiæ, Serbian academics, and the Serbian church inflamed the Serbs’ chosen trauma in the 1980s and 90s, see Volkan, 1997, 1999a.) When they are inflamed, chosen traumas become a kind of emotional fuel for current large-group conflicts, even though the current conflicts may seem rooted entirely in concrete real world issues such as economic, legal, or military concerns. In such a situation, a time collapse occurs: feelings, perceptions, expectations, (and mental defenses against them) pertaining to the past event (now mythologized) get condensed with feelings, perceptions, and expectations about the current enemy. Its dangerousness gets magnified and the enemy is now experienced as both real (they may actually be out to kill you) and fantasized (Stein, 1984). (For more on how such transgenerational transmissions occur, see Apprey, 1993).
Chosen glories, on the other hand, are mental representations of a group’s past triumphs and serve to boost the group’s self-esteem (Moses, 1982; Volkan, 1988). Chosen glories influence identity less pervasively than chosen traumas, however, because their effect is less complex. Chosen traumas bring with them powerful experiences of loss and feelings of humiliation, vengeance, and hatred that trigger within individuals a variety of unconscious defense mechanisms that attempt to reverse these experiences and feelings. Chosen glories, on the other hand, simply enhance libidinal attachment, with no need for reversal.
Rituals
In examining how large groups function, one can identify certain rituals used to shore up or strengthen the large-group identity. These include celebrating anniversaries of symbolic glories and other historical events. When a large group comes under stress, it may enhance or recreate an old symbol to strengthen the group’s cohesion. When the tent shakes, the group members under it will also tend to rally around their leader (the pole) and identify more tightly with each other, as described by Sigmund Freud (1921).
There are also rituals that take place between large groups (Volkan 1999a). No large-group tent stands in isolation; there are always neighbors. Rituals between large groups are usually in the service of enhancing various elements of large-group identity and tend to be governed by two general principles:
1. Opposing groups need to maintain their identities as distinct from each other (principle of “non-sameness”);
2. Opposing groups need to maintain an unambiguous psychological border between them.
Both principles relate to the fact that persons under one tent have a tendency to externalize and project certain unwanted elements onto the other, as if they were throwing mud on the other’s canvas. (See section below on projections.) Sometimes a stain remains, creating another large-group marker, one that has been instituted by the “other,” i.e. the oppressing group. At other times, the mud gets thrown back at the sender. The reason for maintaining a border is to prevent the mud from coming back (boomerang effect).
One ritual that is played out between opposing large groups, especially when they are in conflict, has to do with minor differences between the two groups (Freud, 1917a, 1921, 1930). Minor differences become major ones in order to maintain the distinctions between the two groups and the border between them. If the stress continues, one group may begin to perceive the other as less human, so that it becomes more suitable for absorbing externalizations and projections. First, the other group is seen as human but bad; later they become dehumanized (Bernard, Ottenberg, and Redl, 1973). When an intergroup conflict is over, the fighting has stopped, and as individuals are trying to stabilize their large-group identity again, they ask “who are we now?” Then another ritual may take place: purification, which intensifies the group’s identity by shedding unwanted aspects of it and solidifying its borders. Purifying language, purging cemeteries, and erasing symbols of other cultures (destroying churches or mosques, for example) are all instances of a group strengthening its identity through purification in the wake of conflict with a neighboring group. Ethnic cleansing is an extreme form of purification. (For details, see Volkan 1999a, c).
Examples of the Tree Model
To illustrate some of the concepts and techniques used in the Tree Model, I will refer to the following three initiatives of unofficial diplomacy that brought together influential persons from opposing groups:
1. A series of Arab-Israeli dialogues conducted between 1979 and 1986 under the auspices of the American Psychiatric Association and designed to generate new approaches to the lingering problems after the Camp David accords;
2. Dialogues between Cypriot Turks and Cypriot Greeks from 1988 to 1990 under the auspices of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security to address the continuing frictions that have plagued Cyprus since the Republic was established in 1960 and since the island was divided into northern Turkish and southern Greek Cypriot sections;
3. A dialogue series from 1994-96 between Estonians, Russians, and Russian-speakers living in Estonia conducted by CSMHI in collaboration with The Carter Center of Atlanta.
I participated in the Arab-Israeli meetings for six years and chaired them for the last three years. In Estonia, I co-chaired the dialogues with Harold Saunders. For the Cypriot Turk-Cypriot Greek gatherings, I was a participant-observer.
DIAGNOSIS
The first step in any effort at unofficial diplomacy should involve an assessment or diagnosis of the problems to be addressed. CSMHI believes that large-group (i.e. ethnic) problems can only be fully diagnosed on location. Before traveling to a particular country or region to begin work, CSMHI’s interdisciplinary team studies the history and culture of the antagonist groups, collects information on the current situation, and identifies problems. From the beginning, it is clear that interdisciplinary collaboration is needed. Even though the historian on the team may not be an expert in the particular country, he brings a methodology and a way of thinking that contributes to understanding the information gathered. Clinicians bring understanding of the mental representation of historical events and how they may be shared by members of a large group. Regional experts are consulted, as are the local newspapers when available, and other sources. At the end of this preparatory time, the team draws up a list of problems, local contacts, and potential partners who may be able to provide further contacts and information. In cases where the invitation to help has come directly from the country involved, initial local contacts may already be in place. When the request has come from elsewhere, local contacts must be developed and nurtured.
Once on location, the CSMHI team conducts a series of interviews with a wide variety of people (from both sides of the conflict) including government officials, legislators, civic leaders, members of the media, scholars (historians, psychologists, and others), representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and average citizens of all ages. The method of interviewing is not based on simple questions and answers. Data collected in this fashion can only give a surface (conscious) picture of a large group and will not reveal the hidden (unconscious) large-group issues that CSMHI considers crucial to understanding the dynamics at work. Therefore, CSMHI conducts interviews that are open-ended and psychodynamic in an attempt to understand the internal world of the interviewees. We inquire about how events in their adulthood are perceived according to their childhood experiences, and we collect dream and fantasy material. We have found that most people in troubled regions are eager to participate in such interviews. It is as if they welcome the opportunity to unburden themselves of their anxiety.
The aim of the interviews is to reveal the intertwining of external and internal processes through individuals’ conscious and unconscious experiences with the potential or actual societal trauma and change around them. Facilitators also assess their anxiety levels and the degree to which members of opposing groups dehumanize each other. We explore the dynamics of leader-follower relationships, and endeavor not to lose sight of existing political realities and immediate problems requiring resolution. We also seek to understand the psychic defenses and adaptations that people use to deal with tensions or trauma. When all the interviews are concluded, we examine common themes, both overt and covert, to identify anxiety-provoking issues as well as common fantasies and expectations from the perspective of each large group.
Every ethnic conflict has its “hot” locations. These may include national cemeteries, memorials to those who have died in large-group conflicts, and other historically-important or symbolic locales. Visiting such places with members of the groups in conflict allows the facilitating team to get quickly to the heart of what these sites represent and why they are perceived as hot in the context of the conflict. Hot places visited by CSMHI teams have included: the National Cemetery in Latvia, from which Latvians wanted to remove Russian corpses after regaining independence; the now derelict former Soviet military bases at Paldiski and Pärnu, Estonia; and a schoolyard in South Ossetia which had served as a makeshift cemetery while Georgians occupied their usual one during the 1990-92 Georgian-South Ossetian war. I feel that in many ways visiting such places is to large-group psychology what recounting dreams is to an individual undergoing psychoanalysis. Both can provide a direct avenue to hidden and symbolic aspects of the psychological environment. By physically taking members of opposing groups to sites that are imbued with traumatic significance, one can often bring to the surface deeply held wishes, sentiments, affects, and convictions that otherwise remain hidden.
During this diagnosis phase, we examine how elements of a large group’s identity are heightened when the group is threatened and under stress. This preoccupation colors every aspect of the conflict and the relationship with the opposing group. Classical psychoanalytic theories of large groups, beginning with Freud’s (1921), basically deal with individuals’ intrapsychic perceptions of large groups and their leaders. They therefore remain mostly theoretical constructs that are not of much use to diplomats and political scientists as they analyze important events and incidents. In other words, until now, psychoanalysis has studied large-group psychology in a generic way. What we at CSMHI have tried to do is to study more specific aspects of large-group psychology—such as chosen traumas and glories—aspects that can help us understand why particular groups behave in particular ways.
After the collection and review of pertinent assessment data, an overall psychopolitical diagnosis is formulated and a list is compiled of the real world issues to be addressed and the “hidden transcripts” (Scott, 1990; Harris, 1994) that lie beneath the surface. Hidden transcripts are unspoken objectives or sentiments that pertain to a group’s identity or other collective motivations. They often fuel resistances and interfere with effective discussion of real world issues, and therefore must somehow be uncovered and acknowledged to pave the way for practical resolution of specific issues.
For example, Estonians were naturally euphoric after regaining their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But CSMHI was able to uncover other less obvious aspects of the Estonian outlook through intensive interviews with a wide range of Estonians and through visits to “hot” places such as the Soviet nuclear submarine base at Paldiski. What we found was that Estonians suffered from an underlying anxiety of “disappearing” as an ethnic group, of ceasing to exist. With the exception of a brief period of independence between 1918-40, Estonians have lived for a millennium under the domination of others. When at last they had regained their independence, they remained anxious that they would once again be swallowed up by a neighboring group (Russians, in this case). This anxiety went against the surface reality that they were happy to be independent. During the first few years after re-independence, hidden anxiety interfered with decision-making on certain issues, such as formalizing the Estonian-Russian border. As Estonians began to envision their future as a small but independent nation, their shared anxiety over “invasion” was paradoxically reactivated. In 1994, a large ferry called the Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea, killing nearly 900 passengers and evoking both grief and shame among Estonians. The tragedy was felt even more strongly because it echoed Estonians’ fear of “disappearing.”
Estonians’ anxiety over foreign domination was also fueled by the fact that every third resident of Estonia was ethnic Russian or a Russian-speaker. Of the 1.5 million people living in Estonia, 61.5 percent are ethnically Estonian and 30.3 percent are of Russian origin. In addition, Estonians perceived an economic invasion by Western European and American corporations, as evidenced by the growing number of European cars and American fast-food restaurants. While there were plenty of real world issues to attend to, the perception that Estonia would “disappear” caused resistance to policies of integration of the “non-Estonian” people living in Estonia. If Estonian and Russian “blood” were to “mix,” the uniqueness of the Estonian people—whose sense of identity had managed to persist despite their small numbers and adverse conditions over the centuries—might not survive. Our diagnosis then indicated the need to help Estonians differentiate real issues from fantasized fears so that they could deal more adaptively with the integration of the Russian-speakers living in Estonia.
In the schema of the Tree Model, the roots of the tree are formed by the psychopolitical diagnosis of the conflict and the contacts made with individuals from many sectors of society. The importance of the diagnostic phase cannot be overestimated, for initiating dialogues without a thorough diagnosis (of both conscious and unconscious shared aspects of the situation) can be like shooting in the dark. A crucial ingredient to the whole process, of course, is a source of funding sufficient to ensure that the project will be carried to fruition—that is, funds to cover the diagnostic period, psychopolitical dialogues, and the design and implementation of concrete projects.
(For a detailed example of a psychopolitical diagnosis, see (Volkan, 1997), which describes an assessment that I did in collaboration with Joseph Montville in post-Ceauºescu Romania.).
PSYCHOPOLITICAL DIALOGUES
Meeting format
The next stage, the trunk of the tree, is a series of psychopolitical dialogues, carried out over several years, that convenes members of the opposing groups under the facilitation of a neutral third party team.
Before delving into the purpose and methodology of the psychopolitical dialogues, it may be helpful to describe their format and structure. Psychopolitical dialogues are not academic conferences. They do not involve the presentation of academic papers. Ideally, these “workshops” should be four-day meetings held three times per year, over a period of two to three years (or more, if the situation calls for it). The same participants should be invited each time, with new participants invited to replace any who cannot attend or to add new perspectives deemed helpful or missing in the course of the series. A participant group totaling 30-40 persons including similar numbers from each opposing group is desirable. Each meeting begins with a plenary session during which a representative of each group makes a summary (from their perspective) of the events that have taken place since the last meeting.
The rest of the time is spent in small groups (8-10 persons), each led by 2-3 members of CSMHI’s neutral facilitating team. Whenever possible, we pair a clinician with a diplomat, political scientist, or historian to be co-leaders of a small group. The number of small groups depends on the total number of participants, but the same small groups are reformed at each meeting, so that the same participants meet many times with each other over a long period. During the first meeting of a dialogue series, we convene a plenary session at the beginning and end of each day, with small group sessions in between. As the dialogue series progresses, the plenary sessions become less important and less frequent. At a minimum, the participants meet all together at the beginning of the first day and at the end of the last day of the meeting. At this last plenary session, selected members of each small group share with the others what has happened in their sessions—their findings, suggestions, and suggested action plans. CSMHI has found that four days is an optimal length for psychopolitical meetings. Three days may not allow sufficient time for breakthroughs in empathy, communication, and understanding, or for removing psychological resistances and taming inflamed emotions, yet extending meetings longer than four days does not seem to add constructive time.
In addition to the plenary and small-group sessions themselves, participants and facilitators eat meals together and have other occasions for informal social interaction. It is often during impromptu conversations that important humanizing communication takes place. Outside the formal sessions, CSMHI team members remain on the lookout for derivatives of conscious and unconscious processes that influence the dialogues.
During the first two days of a gathering, a tendency for the participants from the opposing groups to focus on “protecting” their large-group identities underlies much of the discussion. Usually, they are not aware of their intense involvement in this endeavor, and the degree to which they do it varies according to how long the dialogue series has been going on and how familiar the participants are with each other. Because of this tendency to focus on large-group identity, the psychologically-oriented facilitators take the lead during the first two days of a meeting. On the third day, if things are proceeding well, empathy generally sets in, and opposing group members begin truly to hear each other. The fourth day is usually devoted to coming up with practical suggestions to ease the tensions between these large groups. This is when the diplomats and political scientists in the facilitating group come to the fore. It should be noted that the relationships among the facilitating team members are quite important to the success of the dialogues. In CSMHI’s case, several members have worked together for over 20 years and have worked through the natural competition between disciplines. They can speak each other’s “language” and effectively call on those whose skills are most needed at a particular juncture in the dialogues.
During the series of dialogue meetings, there are actually two parallel processes taking place. One is the evolution within each four-day meeting, and the other is the larger process taking shape over the whole two to three year series (Julius, 1991). As we describe the methodology and techniques used during the psychopolitical dialogues, it is important to understand that certain patterns of interaction and behavior may repeat themselves at different stages in a single meeting and over the longer cycle of the series. The process is not linear—that is, progress made on a particular day, or during a particular four-day meeting, may appear to be repressed when participants revert to less constructive behavior at a subsequent meeting. The role of the facilitators in keeping the meeting going is essential at such times and will be discussed later.
Meeting location
Great care should be taken in choosing the location(s) for the dialogue sessions, for it is important to meet in a site that is perceived as neutral by the opposing groups of participants. If the opposing groups live within the same state, it may be possible and appropriate to hold most or all of the meetings in the same facility. For some groups, there may be an advantage to selecting a meeting location that is somewhat isolated, so that participants will not be tempted to absent themselves from portions of the dialogue to attend to professional or other business. In addition, there can be a psychological benefit from holding the meetings in a location quite removed from the participants’ home territories, for example in a third country not party to the conflict. If participants are from different nations, alternating hosting the meetings in one country and then the other may be desirable. In all cases, facilitators should remain sensitive to possible slights or disadvantages felt by the participants—sometimes even unconsciously—having to do with the location and environment of the meeting.
During the 1979-86 Arab-Israeli dialogues, meeting sites rotated between various locations in the US, Europe, and Egypt. At one meeting in particular, in Alexandria, Egypt, the Egyptian hosts chose to hold the sessions in the Palestine Hotel. Although the organizers probably meant no harm by the choice of hotel, for the Israelis, we felt that staying there might be uncomfortable on some level, because its name suggested a tacit recognition of Palestine. On the first evening, there was musical entertainment for the participants after dinner. First, some Egyptian musicians came and played classical music in the style of Mozart or Schubert. Later, they brought in Alaturca music and a belly dancer. At this point, without saying anything, and perhaps without even being aware of the reasons why, the Israeli participants got up and left the room. The atmosphere became quite frosty and the Arab participants appeared hurt by the Israelis’ actions, though none of this was verbalized. As a facilitator, I knew something had to be done. I quietly conferred with others on the facilitating team, and several of us decided to join in the belly dancing and actively participate. This defused the effect of the Egyptians having “imposed” their music and culture on the others, and it took away some of the Egyptians’ hurt at the departure of the Israelis. All of this took place without any verbalization or explanation of what was happening. From such situations, we can see that facilitators must always be alert, not just to what is said, but to non-verbal cues and actions by the participants that affect the atmosphere of the meeting and may hinder communication. The location and peripheral activities at a meeting are all part of the environment, and can call for interference by the facilitators in unexpected ways.
Dialogue participants
The dialogue participants from the opposing groups are usually identified and selected during the diagnostic period. They should be individuals who are influential within their respective circles (government, academia, media, etc.), and who are willing to participate in an unofficial capacity. Facilitators should strive for balance and symmetry between members of the opposing groups and representatives from a variety of sectors. Although the capacity of participants to influence others outside the dialogue group will ultimately determine the impact of the process on the community at large, CSMHI has found that it can be counterproductive to include top political leaders. Often it is members of the next level down in government who make the most suitable participants, since they can be freer from political pressures and more able to change their own attitudes, yet still influential.
Obviously, each participant in the dialogue series has his or her own personality organization, professional and social standing, and political orientation. To varying degrees, each is also influenced by the large-group conflict. During the discussions, individuals may feel as if they are under personal attack and may feel compelled to defend their large-group identity (directly or indirectly) and to participate in large-group rituals. The facilitators’ aim is not to create small therapy groups for individual participants, but to encourage participants to be spokespersons for their respective large groups. Because the principal focus is on the large-group conflict as reenacted during the dialogues, small-group dynamics pertaining to the participants as individuals are only taken into consideration when they get in the way. There will inevitably be occasions when the clinicians on the facilitating team note expressions of thorny personal issues. When this happens, facilitators should try to direct attention once more to the large-group conflict as quickly as possible.
Throughout the meetings, facilitators keep watch for and monitor developments that threaten the participants’ group identities and the psychological border between them. Such threats may occur, for example, when the antagonists perceive each other as too much alike to maintain the differentness of their identities, or when one group acts as a spokesperson for the other.
The psychology of facilitators
Crucial to the dialogues is the establishment of an environment that is psychologically safe for dialogue. This is accomplished first and foremost through the facilitators’ neutrality. Neutrality involves showing the participants that the third party is truly interested in the process rather than in suggesting or imposing particular solutions. The facilitators’ neutrality entails avoiding humiliating either party and exploring in tactful ways the anxiety that is related to participants’ large-group identities.
Facilitators should appreciate how difficult it may be for some participants to attend the dialogue meetings. Some may be perceived as “traitors” for talking with the enemy, and may even be putting themselves in real danger by doing so. Neutrality does not mean that the facilitators are oblivious to participants’ emotions. Instead it requires that the facilitators remain curious about the feelings expressed and events described so that all the participants become more curious. This leads to an ability to hear multiple meanings attached to what is discussed and to a loosening of rigidly held views. This process is further enhanced when the facilitators can absorb the emotions that surface when members of opposing groups trade historical grievances (see section below). In the end, it is the actions of the facilitators that convince participants of their neutrality—their not taking sides and not humiliating anyone, and their absence of any ulterior motivation except to be of service.
Unlike the dialogue participants from opposing groups, the facilitating team is not facing an enemy, and thus is less prone to respond impulsively to ethnonationalistic sentiments. The maturity and success of the facilitating team’s approach will depend on clearly defining their task, developing a working alliance among themselves, and having a nonregressed relationship with their leader. Thus, it is important that the neutral team work together for some time before convening the dialogues in order to develop into a work group (see section below on small group development) and to have a good grasp of the issues involved between the parties. As noted above, with team members from a variety of disciplines, it is also imperative that their professional differences be worked through ahead of time and that they establish among themselves a common language of communication. The leader of the facilitating team will be perceived as the leader of the whole gathering, so it is important that he or she be capable of establishing and maintaining a leadership role and helping the leaders of the antagonist parties to define their respective tasks.
Frequent debriefing among facilitating team members is essential during the psychopolitical dialogues. At the end of each day, CSMHI team members meet to share their observations and work through potential difficulties they might be experiencing. Some facilitators may favor one antagonist group over the other. Like the participants, they may develop transference and countertransference attitudes towards particular participants or toward political leaders who are not in the room (for more details, see later section on transference). Participants, on the other hand, may develop unrealistic fantasized expectations of the facilitators. During their nightly meetings, the facilitating team should discuss and work through such issues together.
In the Estonian-Russian dialogues, for example, it was clear that one of the regular participants from Russia, Yuri Voyevoda, was suspicious of the American facilitating team’s motivations for conducting the dialogues. A member of Russia’s State Duma and Vice Chair of the Committee on CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots, Voyevoda fantasized that CSMHI was connected with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Not surprisingly, this made the CSMHI team and its leaders rather uncomfortable. One night, during one of the dialogue meetings, Voyevoda invited me (with Yuri Urbanovich as interpreter) to join him at the sauna and asked questions of me for over an hour. At the end of this “interrogation,” Voyevoda summed up his thoughts by quoting Confucius: “it does not matter what color the cat is—what matters is whether the cat catches mice!” implying that he was still puzzled by our motivations, but willing to go along because the results were helpful. Such impromptu exchanges with participants are sometimes necessary and often pivotal, and facilitating team members must be willing and able to engage participants in a variety of ways in order to further the process.
Small group discussions
One of the first tasks in the small group sessions of the psychopolitical dialogues is for the facilitators to help the participants become a functional “work group” (Bion, 1961). Those members of the facilitating team who have expertise in the psychodynamics of small-group discussions (typically the clinicians) take the lead and work to establish a safe environment for discussion. They use clinical skills to identify and deal with unconscious resistances so that more meaningful and realistic discussions can take place.
My understanding of small-group dynamics, later put to use in psychopolitical dialogues, has its roots in a teaching method called “the fieldwork method,” that I developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine (Volkan and Hawkins, 1971a, 1971b, 1972). The teaching format consisted of a small group of about eight psychiatric residents who met regularly with me (the teacher/leader) and occasionally with my consultants for over 225 hours per year. The small groups observed (behind a one-way mirror) residents’ treatment sessions with numerous psychiatric in-patients. This fieldwork involved observation and simultaneous discussion with the leader, which helped the residents gain knowledge on the spot (experiential learning). The group’s learning was a process. To be successful, the facilitator had to remove the students’ resistances to learning. For instance, when a patient’s situation or history evoked emotions in a particular resident (perhaps striking a chord from the resident’s own life), and kept him or her from effectively helping the patient and learning from the process, the facilitator had to recognize what was happening and help the resident navigate this obstacle. Alternatively, the leader might find that a resident perceived learning as submission to the leader/teacher, and, because of some aspect of the resident’s own development or upbringing, he saw any kind of submission as dangerous or undesirable. In this case, the resident would have difficulty learning from the leader, and this resistance would need to be worked through before learning could take place. I repeated this fieldwork program for five consecutive classes of psychiatry residents and through it gained considerable experience in the psychodynamics of small learning groups.
The experience of guiding the psychodynamics of these resident groups proved to be extremely helpful preparation for coordinating psychopolitical dialogue groups. As leader, I had developed techniques to deal with anxiety, made interpretations when residents became reservoirs of patients’ projections, helped to combine intellectual understanding with emotional experience, dealt with residents’ resistances to learning, encouraged curiosity, and acted as a role model. For these learning groups, the aim was not to provide therapy for the residents, but to help them open new channels of conceptualizing what they were observing, and to respond in a more playful, creative, and therapeutic manner to the anxiety-provoking issues that came up.
In addition to the fieldwork experience, my studies of patients in group therapy provided insights into small-group dynamics that were later useful in interethnic psychopolitical dialogues. I have also benefited from the pioneering work of other psychoanalysts (Foulkes and Anthony, 1957; Bion, 1961; and Abse, 1974). Bion’s studies of small work groups, for example, indicate that groups operate on a mature level whenever their members devote themselves to the performance of a specific task—they can then be properly called a work group. However, when a small group cannot function in a mature way and regression occurs, it is prone to behave according to specific unconscious fantasies. The group members may, for example, increase their suspicions of others and perceive the leader as an omnipotent savior. They may focus on a couple (any two persons in the group) as parents who will save them from anxiety or unpleasant situations. Without agreeing, either tacitly or directly, on a common task, a work group cannot be established, and the small group is no more than a collection of individuals. The leader of a work group must maintain effective contact with the real world, for without it he or she will contribute to the group members’ fantasies. For example, during the initial phase of the APA-sponsored Arab-Israeli dialogue series, there was a time when the participants (including the facilitators) were absorbed and fascinated by the communication between two participants: an Egyptian man and Israeli woman. In the fantasy, this “couple” came to be seen as saviors for the group. It was the facilitators’ understanding of what was happening that turned this regressive fantasy into a progressive dialogue (Volkan, 1997).
While Bion’s understanding of small-group dynamics is useful for groups of eight to twelve people who meet for individual therapeutic purposes, psychopolitical small-group sessions have a different objective. They aim to improve the participants’ understanding of their large-group conflicts. As noted above in the section on facilitators, if “therapy” has to occur, it will be in relation to conflicts with one’s large-group identity and interaction between one large group and the other.
Unlike the learning or therapy groups, psychopolitical dialogue groups are influenced by multiple leaders, which changes their psychodynamics. Among the dialogue group members there are opposing subgroups (such as Israelis, Egyptians, and Palestinians; or Estonians, Russians, and Russian-speakers living in Estonia), each with its own proclaimed or implicit leader. In addition, each small discussion group is led by American (CSMHI) facilitators. Participants may also feel the influence of political leaders who are not present at the meetings. The facilitators need to pay attention to participants’ allegiance to different leaders, and, when this causes difficulties, interpret and intervene.
Creating work groups during CSMHI’s psychopolitical dialogues requires attention to the way in which members hold onto their large-group identity and idealize it while making projections onto the opposing group’s identity. When participants speak about themselves, facilitators help show how these personal stories reflect the history of the individual’s large group and help illuminate members’ emotional investment in events and mental representations. When large-group history is thus taken to a personal level, it can be more intimately shared, which in turn helps loosen the rigidified positions of each party. Work in these small groups enables opposing parties to find a new way of looking at the problems, which they eventually acknowledge as shared.
ANATOMY OF A DIALOGUE:
PATTERNS, CONCEPTS,
AND STRATEGIES
This section will describe some of the key patterns of behavior, concepts, and strategies that characterize the process of psychopolitical dialogues.
Displacement onto a mini-conflict
Sometimes, at the outset of a dialogue meeting, a disruptive situation evolves abruptly and absorbs the attention and energy of all participants. Such a situation is usually marked with a sense of urgency, yet the content of this “crisis” is essentially insignificant in comparison to the salient aspects of the ethnic or national conflict for which the dialogue meeting has been organized. It is reminiscent of the extended debates on who sits where at a conference table that sometimes occur prior to important negotiations between nations. I call these mini-conflicts (Volkan, 1988), and while seemingly inexplicable and incongruous—much like the masques that precede an Elizabethan tragedy—they provide condensed and symbolically suggestive treatments of what will be explored dramatically later in the play itself. Through the mini-conflict, many of the urgent concerns connected with large-group tensions are reduced to a more local and accessible realm.
For example, a mini-conflict occurred at a meeting of Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinians and Americans that took place in Switzerland a few days after the assassination in Portugal of Dr. Issam Sartawi, then the Palestine Liberation Organization’s roving envoy. An argument erupted over whether to hold a moment of silence in Dr. Sartawi’s memory. The Palestinians naturally wished to do so, but the Israelis did not want to pay this honor to an associate of Chairman Yasser Arafat. Both sides threatened to leave the gathering, and this crisis had to be resolved before negotiations could begin.
Another mini-conflict at the outset of a later dialogue among Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinians, and American facilitators cropped up as if to “protect” the participants from a heated discussion of a recent troublesome development in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. The “problem” concerned the issue of spouses, for the spouses who had accompanied participants were restricted from participating in the dialogue itself. One Palestinian demanded that his wife be allowed to attend the meeting in an official capacity, and this unexpected development quickly took on seemingly critical importance. The large-group issues were obscured and forgotten for the time being.
Such frequent occurrences suggest that mini-conflicts are bound up in the mechanism of displacement. Although individual personalities may be predisposed to causing such disruptions, I believe that these early crises also represent a group process in operation. The individual and large-group sense of self are heightened in circumstances of physical closeness, thus threatening the paradoxical equilibrium that is maintained between enemies—they “need” each other yet must avoid perceiving that they are too “close” or similar to one another, and therefore must maintain a degree of distance. By creating mini-conflicts, derivatives of aggression are displaced onto an event that is essentially insignificant in comparison to the magnitude of the national or ethnic conflict at hand. Like intellectualization, a mini-conflict acts as a defense mechanism to cover up the anxiety that is at the heart of the real conflict.
While mini-conflicts appear to derail the dialogue, paradoxically they can actually perform a useful function in the process. They can help facilitators establish or re-establish their leadership role. As stated earlier, there are inherently multiple leaders in such gatherings, but if the head of the facilitating team is able to “resolve” the mini-conflict, he or she establishes authority and can redirect participants to work together, thus turning attention to the large-group conflicts at hand.
The mini-conflict in the first example came to an end when I declared that participants could honor the memory of anyone they wanted during the minute of silence. The Israelis decided to go along with this gesture but openly declared that they would not honor Dr. Sartawi. They chose instead to honor a recently fallen Israeli, Emil Grunzweig, who had been active in Israel’s Peace Now movement. In the second example, regarding a Palestinian’s demand that his wife attend the meeting, the mini-conflict was resolved by my declaring, as leader of the American group, that all spouses were welcome. (None actually attended after this invitation.)
Facilitators of unofficial diplomacy should understand the meaning of mini-conflicts, when they arise, in relation to the psychodynamics of a particular gathering. The leader must approach the crisis seriously, with assurance, and with respect toward the participants’ large-group sentiments. Mini-conflicts should not be allowed to drag on, as if they were the main focus of the meeting, for if this happens, the whole meeting can be derailed.
The echo phenomenon
When representatives of opposing sides open a discussion, the echo of recent events involving their large groups can often be heard in their exchanges, further igniting emotions that exacerbate resistances to adaptive discussions. During psychopolitical dialogues, I have seen the shadow of some recent military or political development fall over the work group. It then becomes necessary to acknowledge and assimilate this shadow and its meaning for the opposing group before realistic negotiation can continue. During my work with psychiatric residents mentioned earlier, I noted examples of such echoes: a learning group discussing a patient might bring a recent facet of the patient’s situation to life. This identification with the patient and reenactment of his or her psychodynamic aspects is carried out unconsciously within the learning group. The leader of the learning group should therefore bring this to the participants’ consciousness so that they may benefit from their identification and reenactment, that is, to have a “first hand” experience about the patient’s perceptions and feelings and develop empathy.
In the opening plenary session at the Arab-Israeli workshop following the one-minute silence in memory of Dr. Sartawi and Mr. Grunzweig, many aggressive remarks were heard, but the affect was flat. Noting my own inner anxiety, I pondered how the shadow of the assassinations seemed to inhibit the expression of emotions, especially aggressive emotions related to vengeance and the desire to “get even.”
The psychodynamics of vengeance in the individual have been studied by Charles Socarides (1977). In the context of the psychopolitical dialogues, my aim was to focus on the idea that participants’ anxiety over their own aggression in the Arab-Israeli conflict might induce in them an unconscious identification with the assassins or else a hidden anxiety that they might be assassinated themselves. Throughout the years, I have observed that participants who voluntarily become involved in unofficial dialogues with the enemy are seen to some degree as “traitors” by those in their own community who are against all communication with the enemy. These participants may also experience shame, which is intensified if and when the enemy carries out some violent act while the talks are going on.
In the case of the workshop described above, the echo of the assassinations of Dr. Sartawi and Mr. Grunzweig seemed to have induced a variety of feelings among the participants: vengeance, identification with the aggressor, fear of being a target of aggression, and also heightened shame. When we went to a restaurant for dinner in Vevey, Switzerland, where this meeting was held, we were aware of the security measures taken as a precaution. Swiss police patrolled the street outside, and Palestinian participant Elias Frej, then mayor of Bethlehem, was careful not to sit in front of an open window. I was seated between an Israeli psychoanalyst and a Palestinian lawyer. When the latter expressed a desire to learn something about schizophrenia, the Israeli and I replied from our professional perspectives. Then the conversation returned to violence and aggression: the lawyer wanted to know if John Hinckley, the would-be assassin of then President Ronald Reagan, was schizophrenic, and he bemoaned the impossibility of protecting society from “crazy killers.” I noted that the lawyer might be trying to rid himself of aggressive impulses and feelings, in a displaced fashion, by speaking of John Hinckley. (Tragically, not long after this conversation took place, this Palestinian was himself brutally murdered in Gaza. The Palestinian Weekly (December 6, 1985) attributed the killing to Abu Nidal or another similar group. It was then clear to most of the facilitators that participants’ sense of being “traitors” was not just a fantasy, and we became more aware of the realities entailed as participants’ “re-entered” their communities after attending our dialogues.)
After that dinner, Elias Frej spoke with humor of the security measures in a London hotel where he had recently stayed with his wife. Apparently conversation at his table, as at mine, had dealt with security, protection, and the fear of assassination, albeit indirectly. I felt that the shadow of the killings of Dr. Sartawi and Mr. Grunzweig and the associated large-group identity issues had fallen heavily on the group, so I brought it up at the plenary meeting the next morning. My observations helped lift the mood of the meeting so that a less-distracted dialogue could ensue.
The influence of external events on participants in a psychopolitical dialogue is not always indirect. Whenever a recent military or political move has disturbed one side, feelings about it must be aired before negotiations can begin or resume. In one meeting in Estonia (between Russians, Estonians, and Russian-speakers in Estonia), the echo of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s increasing popularity at that time caused increased anxiety among Estonian participants. Zhirinovsky had recently been in Finland, where he had made remarks skeptical of Estonian independence, and had promoted nationalistic policies for Russia’s “near abroad” that Estonians considered threatening. Estonian fears of a surge in Russian aggressiveness and heated discussions on the subject pervaded the meeting until the facilitating team enabled Estonian participants to be reassured that the Russians participating in the dialogue did not hold the same views as Zhirinovsky.
Official diplomats take great pains to plan strategically the timing of official meetings, yet unforeseen events sometimes occur after a meeting date has been agreed upon and an agenda has been set. The echo phenomenon suggests that close attention must be paid to such incidents, even when they do not seem directly related to the agenda of an official gathering. There are also responses to events of a more personal nature that are clearly related to the echo phenomenon. Although diplomats may well consider the potential influence of any recent military or diplomatic event, events of a personal nature are often overlooked. One example of this was provided by David Rothstein (1972), a psychiatrist who served on the Warren Commission that examined the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Rothstein wrote about a meeting that took place in New Jersey between then President Lyndon B. Johnson and then Russian Premier Aleksei Kosygin. Shortly before this meeting, Kosygin’s wife had died, and Rothstein considered the effects of that death on the meeting’s outcome:
Could Premier Kosygin have no feelings or thoughts whatsoever about his wife’s death while he was meeting with President Johnson, or could he have kept those feelings entirely isolated from his participation in the talks (Rothstein, 1972, p. 147)?
Competition to express chosen traumas and chosen glories
Members of opposing groups in dialogue frequently enter into a competition to list historical grievances (chosen traumas) and past triumphs (chosen glories). In addition to the original traumas and glories themselves, other more recent derivatives of these events are also chronicled. As mentioned earlier, chosen traumas are more effective than chosen glories in promoting group cohesion. Consequently, listings of past group traumas during a dialogue, tend to be more prominent than references to past successes. Furthermore, chosen traumas bring to mind past helplessness, and thus magnify the perception of present danger, especially if one’s group remains passive (Wangh, 1983). This too plays a role in a group’s preoccupation with past shared injuries. At unofficial dialogue meetings, especially at the outset, the competition to list grievances seems involuntary and occurs according to the principle of “the egoism of victimization” (Mack, 1979): there is no empathy for the other side’s losses and injuries.
During the Estonian-Russian dialogue series, Estonians repeatedly brought up grievances against Russians concerning several aspects of their history. They recounted the 1944 Soviet bombing of Tallinn (Estonia’s capital); they described the numbers of Estonians deported, imprisoned, killed, or removed from their homes during the Soviet period; and they bemoaned the humiliation of being forced to learn Russian and relinquish their ethnic traditions under Sovietization.
Russians, on the other hand, especially when feeling humiliated, would speak of their own chosen traumas. They would hark back to their centuries of being attacked and occupied by the Mongols, or to the Nazi period when they suffered disproportionate losses and sacrifices to protect the “civilized world.” Russians also recounted the many advances and advantages that Estonians had gained under Soviet tutelage, such as industrialization and modernization. Russian participants directly and indirectly referred to their legacy as the sons and daughters of a powerful empire with many important achievements, thus boosting their shared self-esteem and holding onto the memories of their chosen glories.
The same kinds of exchanges were seen in the 1988-90 series of meetings between Cypriot Greeks and Cypriot Turks. Here each group focussed on different periods of their recent history to support their grievances. The Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960 with an unworkable constitution that allowed both Greeks and Turks to share power. Within three years, Cypriot Greeks drove Cypriot Turks from the 35% of the island that they had inhabited into enclaves occupying only 3% of it. The Cypriot Turks remained in these enclaves from 1963 until 1974. The period of 1963-1968 was especially traumatic for them. In 1974, the Turkish Army came to Cyprus from the mainland and divided the island into northern Turkish and southern Greek sections. To this day, no political settlement has yet been reached.
Although the intent of these 1988-90 dialogues was to determine what could be done now and in the future, exchanges dwelled on incidents of the past. The participants of Turkish descent continually referred to the 1963 events, which drove so many Turkish Cypriots from their homes. In turn, those of Greek origin repeatedly rehashed accounts of the Turkish military’s intervention in Cyprus in 1974.
In such exchanges, there is little realistic integration of what “they” did to us, what “we” did to them, what “we” did for them, etc. If left unchecked, both sides will continue to list their chosen traumas and glories, back and forth, in an endless and victorless competition. However frustrating such exchanges may be, they are necessary to the process itself, because they serve to strengthen participants’ hold on their ethnic identities. If participants do not feel secure in their ethnic identities, they will have great difficulty negotiating more realistically with the “other” when the time comes.
During listings of grievances, the task of the facilitating team is to absorb the outpouring of the parties’ emotions through active listening, to avoid taking sides, and thus to become a model of empathic listening. When eventually the opposing groups begin to “hear” each other, more realistic discussions can ensue. Mutual recognition of one another’s suffering creates a favorable atmosphere for progress in negotiation because underneath there is a mutual verification of each other’s group identity. Thus the listing of chosen traumas early in the dialogues serves to fortify participants’ ethnic identities. In a later section, I will discuss another way in which chosen traumas enter the psychopolitical dialogues, namely in the phenomenon we call a “time collapse.”
The accordion phenomenon
After some airing of chosen traumas and chosen glories, or their derivatives, and when more empathic communication begins, the opposing groups often experience a rapprochement. This closeness is then followed by a sudden withdrawal from one another and then again by closeness. The pattern repeats numerous times. I liken this to the playing of an accordion—squeezing together and then pulling apart. Derivatives of the aggressive drive are usually the underlying basis for this behavior.
Each party brings to such meetings its historical injuries and conflicts and each experiences conscious and unconscious feelings of aggression toward “the enemy.” Initial distancing is thus a defensive maneuver to keep aggressive attitudes and feelings in check, since, if the opponents were to come together, they might harm one another—at least in fantasy—or in turn become targets of retaliation. When opposing teams are confined together in one room, sharing conscious efforts for peace, they must deny their aggressive feelings as they press together in a kind of illusory union. When this becomes oppressive, it feels dangerous, and distancing occurs again.
During the Arab-Israeli dialogue series, we frequently witnessed sudden harmony among the opposing participants during which they would enthusiastically note their mutual similarities. Statements such as “we are all brothers and sisters, descendants of a common grandfather, Abraham!” would be heard during these periods of unity. But before long participants from each group would reassert their differences and distance from one another, and the cycle of contradictory attitudes would continue.
Similarly, at a meeting in the Estonian-Russian dialogue series, representatives from both sides blamed the extremists in each camp for the problems between the two countries. Thus, the participants from each side squeezed together and appeared extremely friendly in their common assertion that extremists were the problem. Such feelings of togetherness were generally short-lived, however, for when two opposing groups become “friendly,” the perception that they are far more similar than they previously thought causes anxiety. The principle of maintaining “non-sameness” is threatened. When a conflict is “hot,” each group’s identity depends on the belief that they are “good” and their enemy is “bad,” but when these crucial distinctions blur, each group attempts to preserve its own identity and retreats from closeness.
It is my belief that more effective discussion of the real world issues cannot take place unless one allows the accordion playing to continue for a while so that the pendulum-like swing in sentiments can be replaced by more realistic and stable conceptualizations and more secure feelings about participants’ large-group identities. If an agreement is reached during a period of premature closeness, it is likely to be broken or renounced when the groups re-distance themselves.
Externalizations, projections and projective identification
From childhood on, human beings utilize certain mechanisms to get rid of unpleasant aspects of themselves and assign them to others. Externalization is a primitive form of projection whereby we put onto others certain images of ourselves and certain internalized images of others. In psychoanalysis we can identify various levels of projections. As a child’s mind develops, the thoughts, perceptions, and associated feelings, which are perceived as undesirable and ascribed to others, become more formed and more sophisticated.
Members of one group in conflict may attempt to define their identity through externalizing unwanted parts onto the enemy and projecting onto it unwanted thoughts, perceptions and wishes. For example, it is not we who are troublemakers, but them. Often externalizations onto the opposing group reflect a clear “us” and “them” dichotomy of rigid positions: we are “good,” they are “bad.”
Dialogue facilitators may also become the targets of participants’ externalizations and projections. That is, facilitators may appear to be blamed or criticized for things the participants are upset about. When this happens, facilitators with mental health experience have an advantage because they are accustomed to receiving and dealing with their patients’ externalizations and projections (transference). Countertransference—irrational expectations on the part of facilitators—may also surface. Rubbing elbows with politically important individuals, for example, may give the facilitators a sense of undeserved omnipotence. Mental health professionals are cognizant of this phenomenon and after decades of work in the field are less likely to succumb to countertransference responses.
During a dialogue series, projections can also involve a more complex relationship between representatives of the two opposing groups in a pattern similar to the mechanism of projective identification (Klein, 1946) that psychoanalysts see in individual patients. At the group level, one team may project onto the other their own wishes for how the opposing side should think, feel, or behave. The first team then identifies with the other that houses their projections—this other is perceived as actually acting in accordance with the expectations of the former. In effect, one team becomes the “spokesperson” for the other team, and since this process takes place unconsciously, the first team actually believes their remarks about their enemy. However, the resulting “relationship” is not real since it is based on the processes of only one party. Some illustrations may be helpful here, for projective identification can cause stubborn resistances to dialogue that must be addressed before progress can be made.
Egyptian participants at one of our meetings began to make long statements about how Israelis feel, think, react, what they believe in, what they want and why, and so on. Israelis responded in turn with their summaries of what the Egyptians thought, felt and wanted. While appearing to address one another, the two sides were really talking to themselves, conducting a dialogue between their own position and what they believed (or expected or fantasized) was the position of the other. Facilitators then interceded and clarified for the group that what the Egyptians were saying about Israelis might be what they wished or feared the Israelis would think or do, and likewise for the Israelis in regard to the Egyptians. Both sides’ projective behavior had some roots in reality and was probably based on genuine concerns, yet in other respects it may also have been inaccurate and exaggerated, or even wholly false. If both sides are allowed to speak for themselves, then they can begin to modify any faulty perceptions and “tame” their projections. We therefore asked the Egyptians to allow the Israelis to report on their own feelings, thoughts, and actions so that Egyptians could perceive a “reality” that was not colored by fantasized and projected expectations. The same was asked of the Israelis.
In another example, from the Canadian-sponsored dialogue concerning Cyprus, Cypriot Greeks made statements alleging that Cypriot Turks did not get along very well with mainland Turks, and that Cypriot Turks did not like the Turkish army’s presence in Northern Cyprus. While this may actually have been the case for a small number of Cypriot Turks, it was primarily what the Cypriot Greeks wished the situation to be, yet they believed it with no less certainty, and recommended policies based upon such “facts.” It was therefore difficult for Cypriot Greeks truly to listen when the Cypriot Turks did express their own views, for the Cypriot Greeks already “knew” what the Cypriot Turks thought, and discounted any information to the contrary.
Personal stories
Participants in dialogues invariably bring up personal stories pertaining to the large-group conflict at hand. Initially, personal stories often reflect an “us” and “them” (or “me” and “them”) psychology in a black and white manner—the other is seen as all “bad” while one’s own group is experienced as all “good.” This is similar to the mechanism of splitting that clinicians see among patients with borderline personality organization who divide and experience themselves, intimate others, and their mental images as either all “good” or all “bad.” As empathy evolves, however, stories begin to include ambivalences. To have ambivalence is to begin to acknowledge the other’s identity as a total being who is both similar and dissimilar, liked and disliked; the other begins to become more human. One Estonian told the following story:
Let me tell you about “integration” [referring to the integration of Estonians and Russian-speakers in Estonia after Estonia regained independence]. When I was four years old, my family and some Soviet officers were “integrated.” In our apartment we were forced to live in one room so that the Soviet officers could live in all of the other rooms. Furthermore, the new inhabitants of our home did not even bother to learn Estonian to communicate with us, but wanted us to learn Russian and adopt the Russian culture. They brought their wives and children with them, but they would not learn Estonian either.
In this story, the “us” and “them,” and “victim” and “victimizer,” issues are clear. Yet, the next day, this same Estonian recalled a story his mother had told him about how, as a small girl, she used to visit a Russian military hospital (during World War I when Estonia was part of the Russian Empire) and make socks for the Russian soldiers. As he remembered this contrasting experience of Russians, ambivalence had (re)entered his perception of the other group. Alongside the enmity, there had existed friendly relations between Russians and Estonians, but this Estonian was unsure when they would return. He further noted that in folklore it is the Germans who are the historic enemy of Estonia and suggested that Estonians needed “self-analysis” in order to get rid of the feelings they projected onto the Russians.
During the dialogue between Cypriot Greeks and Cypriot Turks, a genuine appreciation of the other’s hurts was made possible when a Turk and a Greek told similar stories. Both described their ordeals of being separated from their families during the 1974 war in Cyprus. Neither knew whether his loved ones were alive or dead, both were emotionally distraught by this horrible uncertainty, but in the end both were reunited with their families. Through this common experience, empathy was established between the two men, and then between the two groups they represented. Instead of continuing to place blame on the other side, they acknowledged that the conflict had caused innocent people to suffer on both sides.
Such exchanges allow the participants to see how their personal identities are intertwined with their large-group identities and what events have led them to hold onto their specific ideologies. Personal stories also allow the facilitating team to encourage discussion, to indirectly ask members of the opposing team to come up with similar stories, and to underline empathic understanding. This leads to the development of empathy from members of the opposing team both for the person and for his or her ethnic group. Personal stories also influence perspectives within a group. Participants who belong to one group typically share certain perceptions, but through personal stories, it may become clear that the groups are not nearly as homogeneous as they had previously believed. When a participant is able to note differences within his or her own group, it enlarges his or her flexibility in dealing with many other complex aspects of the overall conflict (Apprey, 1996;Volkan, 1988, 1997).
Hidden transcripts
There are often practical and rational considerations that make it difficult for two opposing teams of participants to resolve an issue. However, beneath the surface of such pragmatic or logistical problems there may also be hidden resistances that prevent parties from reaching agreement, even if practical obstacles can be overcome. Once a degree of empathy has been established, these “hidden transcripts” (Scott, 1990; Harris, 1994) can be brought into the open.
After Estonia regained its independence, the issue of who could become an Estonian citizen became critical. Among other requirements, non-Estonians had to pass a language examination as a criterion for citizenship. Most Russians who found themselves in Estonia when it broke away from the Soviet Union did not speak or write Estonian, and it became evident that the language examination requirement contained hidden transcripts or hidden agendas. The examination was not standardized and required a one-on-one interview between an Estonian examiner and the (Russian or other) applicant. (For further information on the language examinations, see Neu and Volkan, 1999.)
During the dialogue series there were many rational discussions pertaining to the language examinations. Russian-speakers wanted Estonians to provide language classes to help them prepare for this part of the citizenship requirement. Estonians countered that they lacked the resources to implement such a policy. Many on both sides agreed that the examination should be standardized. Some suggested a review panel, others a multi-ethnic board to design and administer the program. Solutions to overcome many of these obstacles were available, at least in theory, yet progress was elusive. Gradually we realized there were other reasons for the obsession with the language exam. Estonians did not want to standardize or systematize the exams because, consciously or unconsciously, they really wanted the Russian-speakers to leave Estonia altogether. If the language examination were to be officially institutionalized, this would mean, for the Estonians, that the presence of a substantial percentage of Russian-speakers in Estonia would also be institutionalized. At another level, in its unstandardized format, the language examination was a tool of revenge for the Estonians against the Russians.
On the other hand, many Russians living in Estonia did not really want to learn Estonian, not simply because of the practical obstacles to it, but because doing so would be a painful acknowledgment of their minority status in a country where they had recently been dominant. Russian-speakers were not ready to acknowledge this loss in status. During our discussions, the facilitators verbalized these hidden meanings, thereby allowing a deeper understanding of the issues, and paving the way for more realistic discussion.
Minor differences
Early in this century, Sigmund Freud (1917a, 1921, 1930) wrote about the psychology of minor differences among family members and neighboring countries. Participation in various dialogue series has taught us the importance of this phenomenon in negotiations. As a psychopolitical dialogue meeting room develops into a laboratory for large-group conflict, aspects of large-group rituals become prominent in the small group discussions. When parties become genuinely more empathic toward each other, they may become anxious if they begin to perceive themselves and their group as similar to the enemy. As each side’s externalization and projection of unwanted aspects becomes unstable due to the perception that the other is similar to one’s own group, participants may exaggerate the importance of minor differences between them to maintain their separate identities. Minor differences thus function as a border separating the opposing parties so that their respective identities remain intact. A seemingly trivial disparity may then take on monumental importance and turn positive discussions sour. We have found that minor differences between opposing groups are often psychologically harder to deal with than major differences, such as language or religion.
For instance, at a time when relations between Cypriot Turk and Cypriot Greek dialogue participants appeared particularly harmonious, discussion suddenly shifted to the minor differences between Turkish or Greek recipes for baklava—one uses sugar and the other honey. The participants became preoccupied with this seemingly trivial matter at the expense of discussing more serious large-group issues.
In another illustration, at a meeting when Estonian and Russian participants seemed to be expressing increasingly similar views, one Estonian abruptly got up and announced that it was the birthday of a Russian-speaking participant. Everybody was asked to sing “Happy Birthday.” While on the surface this seemed a gesture of camaraderie, it was in essence a defensive act. Coming close to an agreement had made this participant anxious, but he was really responding to the anxiety of participants from both sides. By bringing up the birthday, the participants could be distracted from reaching an agreement and thereby remain different from each other.
In such situations, it is helpful for the facilitating team to interpret the meanin |
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