The foundation matrix described by Foulkes embodies values, standards and myths of each culture as well as our common biological characteristics. The workshops of the European Association for Transcultural Group Analysis have revealed how much of this matrix is unconscious, taken for granted, until we are confronted by people of another culture or have to move from one culture to another. Such a move is often traumatic. The abuse of difference is integral to historical tragedy and trauma, but a move from paranoid destructiveness to depressive reparation is possible in favourable circumstances.