Large-Group Dynamics and World Conflict: The Contributions of Vamik Volkan: Blood Lines: From Ethnic Pride to Ethnic Terrorism. By Vamik Volkan. New York: Farrar,  Straus & Giroux, 1997,  280 pp., $19.00. Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror. By Vamik Volkan. Charlottesville, VA:  Pitchstone Publishing, 2004,  367 pp., $19.95.

Psychoanalysis occupie…roblematic position in regard to international diplomacy and world conflict. It once was assumed that familiarity with the unconscious and the destructive tendencies inherent in human nature might offer analyst…nique and privileged position from which to understand and attempt to contribute to the resolution of national and international crises. In the aftermath of World War I, for example, Freud (1932) was asked to comment on whether human nature made war inevitable.

For the most part, however, assumptions about the relevance and applicability of psychoanalysis to diplomacy and world affairs have not been borne out by experience. Despite the pioneering work on small-group dynamics by Freud, Bion, and others, the explanatory power of analytic theories and the clinical data on which analytic expertise is based have proven more relevant to understanding individual and dyadic behavior and emotional development than to understanding experience and behavior in large social groups. Attempts to apply psychoanalytic insights to politics, large groups, and the interactions between these groups and their leaders have met with little