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In his opening remarks, Dr. Akhtar explained that where and under what circumstances people grow up makes a profound difference in shaping their personality. He underscored how psychoanalysis, by virtue of its expanded exploration of elements beyond the impact of the immediate family, has become a much richer and more textured discipline. Alluding to the difference between the kinds of anxiety associated with times of crisis as opposed to times of prosperity and peace, he stressed the role of generational transmission of anxiety or any prevalent mood or affects in large groups and its profound hidden or explicit effect on children. Therefore, what's in the air is not always what is said but what is not said. These mixtures of what is said and not said then generate the volatility that can create group destiny and identity which is the subject of the panel.
The first speaker, Vamik Volkan, began his psychopolitical presentation by pointing out the importance of studying large group identity, which, alongside an individual's core identity, links him to millions of others within an ethnic, national or large group. To dramatize the workings of a large group identity, he compared the aftermath of two scenarios. First, he had the audience imagine Jack the Ripper striking in Rio and being caught, tried and incarcerated. He remarked that, after a while, he would be forgotten and that there would be no more talk about him. He then reminded the audience of the impact of Slobodan Milošević on the whole of Serbian society and how in contrast his scar will remain forever. Something, then, within society can be used for massive violence which does not belong to the individual. In this case, it was the reactivation of former grievances of the Serbs. Milošević inflamed the Serbs' ‘chosen trauma’ (Volkan, 1999). In order to reactivate that trauma, the 600 year-old bodies of three leaders were dug out and put in coffins and carried from one village to another for a whole year. This wo