A Nazi Legacy: Depositing, Transgenerational Transmission, Dissociation, and Remembering Through Action

by Vamik D. Volkan

Overview

This book relates the psychoanalytic journey of a man in his thirties, a grandson of a high-level SS officer, whose case illustrates how individuals can sometimes suffer greatly or cause the suffering of other innocent persons, simply because they are descendants of perpetrators. In it, technical considerations in treating such an individual, including countertransference issues and concepts related to transgenerational transmissions-for example, identification, depositing, dissociation, encapsulation, and remembering through actions-are explored. The man had a repeating daydream of carrying a big egg under his arm. The imagined egg, representing his encapsulated dissociated state, contained the mental representation of his Nazi grandfather and his grandfather's victims, along with images of most tragic historical events. He attempted to turn his grandfather's image from a life-taker to a life-giver and wished to own the older man's grandiose specialness, while fearing the loss of his own life. These opposite aims created unnamed "catastrophes".

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780429910371
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/08/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	579 KB

About the Author

Vamik D Volkan

Table of Contents

Preface , Introduction , The impact of the Third Reich: The end of "silence" in psychoanalysis , Victor: A man who lived in two different worlds , A look at narcissism, splitting, depositing, dissociation, and encapsulation , The "Firefighter" , A dead old man whose heart kept beating , The T4 euthanasia programme , Locked-up letters , Let there be oxygen , Legal redress and the psychology of remembering through actions , Photography, maggots, and jumping over a barbed wire fence , Searching for and finding a new life , Another look at identification, depositing, and transgenerational transmission