Title

Blind Trust: Large Groups and Their Leaders in Times of Crisis and Terror

Pre-publication statement about the book

This book is a culmination of over three decades of profound immersion in the most pressing socio-political conflicts of our time, by the psychoanalyst with probably the most direct experience with such issues of any in the psychoanalytic world. From his roots in the dynamic unconscious, the author applies his knowledge of depth psychology to the turbulent and destructive human experiences in the current cauldrons of the greatest unrest and disaster throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

    Drawing on his childhood as a Turk living in Cyprus during recurrent struggles with Cypriot Greeks, and currently from his unique position for many years heading up psychopolitical studies at the University of Virginia in the heart of Jeffersonian America, Volkan writes of activities of astonishing import, as he served as envoy, negotiator and consultant, on Commissions from the United Nations to the American Psychiatric, in trouble spots from Israel to Egypt, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Kuwait, both halves of post-War Berlin and the Soviet Union. Utilizing his psychoanalytic knowledge to illuminate the etiologic bases of war, revolution, massacres and terror, as these have disturbed the world from ancient times to modern civilization, his voice speaks for the imperative of reason, the application of modern analytic knowledge for conflict resolution at the highest levels.

    Volkan’s subjects are large groups and their leaders. Windows into the lives of the prophet Muhammad, or Stalin, Milosevic, and Osama Bin Laden, or David Koresh, are interspersed with examinations of religion and fundamentalism, separately, each from both sides, and a sober study, including the Moslem view, of suicide attackers. Volkan’s detailed and scholarly description of regressive movements in large group identities, complemented by an equal attention to progressive and creative reparative forces, is perhaps the most significant expansion of psychoanalytic group psychology since Freud’s original breakthrough.

—Leo Rangell

Honorary President

International Psychoanalytic Association

About the author

Vamik D. Volkan is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia. His thirty books have been translated into more than a dozen languages. 

Contents

Introduction: From the Couch to the Negotiating Table. The Seven Threads of Large-Group Identity. Regression: Plunging Back into a World of Fear and Desire. Rituals that Bind People Together. From Waco to the Bamian Valley. From the Bamian Valley to War in Iraq. "A Decisive Trifle." Force of Narcissism. Leaders as Teachers. Albania: From Regression to Progression. Coda. Endnotes. Bibliography. Index.

ISBN:            0-9728875-2-0 (hardcover) / 0-9728875-3-9 (paperback)

Price:           $29.95 (hardcover) / $19.95 (paperback)

Pages:         368

Trim size:    6x9