Our large group identities begin to form soon after our individual identities. I might learn that I am Australian, I am Catholic and I am of Polish ethnicity. I begin to feel a bond with people we have never met. I may learn to despise others I may never meet on the grounds of their large group identities - condescending to New Zealanders, suspicious of Muslims and hating Russians.
We see large group loyalties and animosities playing out in our own communities and around the world. This International Dialogue Initiative case conference workshop provides an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the forces, conscious and unconscious, operating in the world today.
The International Dialogue Initiative is a private, international, multidisciplinary group comprised of psychoanalysts, academics, diplomats and other professionals, who bring a psychologically-informed perspective to the study and amelioration of societal conflict.
The case conference method.
Using current cases, this Workshop explores the Large Group Identity dynamics of societies in conflict and the implications of those dynamics for intervention. How can we identify large group identity in others and in ourselves, learn about the emotional history it represents, and bring this knowledge to fruition in working with disturbed societal relationships? In the intimate setting of a small group, the Workshop uses a clinical case conference model to illuminate how historical trauma becomes part of current large group identity and profoundly affects a society’s relationships, within and across its boundaries.
Note: May 22nd Seminar on large-group identify - Please Book Separately
Series Dates:
- June 5 – Case Conference 1
- June 12 – Case Conference 2
- June 19 – Reflections on learning; possible future application.
- Case Conference members need not have attended the lecture. They would be expected to register for and attend all three sessions after the lecture. Cases for presentation will be drawn from members’ work. Final selection of cases will be decided by the faculty in consultation with Workshop leadership. Faculty will help members prepare their case for presentation.
Hosted by Fiona Martin and Ross Williams
Presenters:
Vamik Volkan, M.D., DLFAPA, FACPsa, is the founder and President Emeritus of the International Dialogue Initiative
Regine Scholz, Ph.D., Training Director of the IDI. Founding member of the German Society for Group Analysis and Group Psychotherapy
Gerard Fromm, Ph.D., Senior Consultant to the Erikson Institute for Education and Research of the Austen Riggs Center
