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Edited by Raman Kapur and Jim Campbell (Karnac, London, 2004), 156 pp. £16.99 (paperback).
In the aftermath of the deadly attacks of 11th September 2001, a number of authors have considered the nature of terrorism and political violence from a psychoanalytic perspective (Covington et al. 2002, Varvin and Volkan 2003). This international focus has brought into sharp relief the relative neglect within the British and Irish psychoanalytic literature of the most recent period of bloody conflict centred in Northern Ireland. With a few notable exceptions (Benson 1994, Kapur 2001, Alderdice 2005, Elliott 2005), authors within Northern Ireland itself have appeared reluctant, if not resistant, to engage with the explosive psychodynamics of the Troubles – itself a euphemistic term that understates the scale and intensity of the associated terror and suffering.
In response to an invitation to address a recent conference on the enduring psychological impact of the Troubles, a highly respected and very experienced psychotherapist, based a short distance outside Belfast, commented that little if any psychological fallout from the conflict seems to emerge as material within the context of private psychotherapy sessions. One of the aims of the present volume is to challenge this complacent notion that the Troubles happened elsewhere and belong to a different social class. Drawing on Kapur and Campbell's respective backgrounds in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and social work, this collaboration offers a psycho-social perspective on the widespread psychological effects of a conflict that is deeply rooted, but often only understood at a surface level.
A more thoughtful analysis is set out here, which challenges the powerful myth of two religious tribes warring with one another