Presenter: |
Martin W. Gossmann, MD |
Chair: |
Constance O. Goldberg, MS, BCD |
Discussant: |
Paul H. Ornstein, MD |
Self Psychology Page | 20th Conference Program
| 'Take away their past and you take away their identity' | 'I would not expect anything good from the children of a country whose national archives offer only murderers and no heroes' 1 |
This sociopsychological and anthropological observation, on the one hand, and the warning Peter Schneider put forward in his New York Times article, "For Germans, Guilt Isn't Enough" (Dec. 5, 1996), on the other hand, both point to the important influence of a person's cultural past on the psychological development of the individual and of the consecutive generations.
Past or History refer in this context not only to the biographic past of the individual as it constitutes his/her own life span but to the embeddedness of the individual into the social or ethnic group and into a transgenerational biographic line.
Not to be connected to a 'history' with its transpersonal and transgenerational dimensions may interfere with the development of a sense of 'identity' or 'self'. On the other hand, to find your 'history' to 'offer only murderers and no heroes' will have an equally devastating effect on the development of a stable sense of self.
What if both were the case? But how could you not have a past and have a past full of atrocities at the same time?
Presenting clinical data from the treatment of a gifted young man who found himself trapped in this dilemma, I would like to discuss the effect of the understanding of a person's transpersonal and transgenerational 'history' as well as the lack thereof on the development of the self.
1 New York Times, Dec. 5, 1996