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A Group-Dynamic Understanding of Structural Violence and Group Psychotherapy Andreas von Wallenberg Pachaly, Düsseldorf (FRG)
Abstract: In this paper, I wish to discuss the political or even better so- cial dimension of psychoanalysis in general and psychoanalytic group-therapy especially! To approach this subject, I want to intro- duce to you the concept of structural violence as it was put forward by Johan Galtung in the early seventies. Next, I wish to develop a group-dynamic understanding of this concept as well as attempt a psycho- and group-historical understanding, which helps us to diag- nose the downfall of structural violence within the personality- structure of an individual patient, which I understand as the petri- fied internalized group-dynamics of his primary group. The next step will be to integrate the psycho-historical and group- dynamical concept of structural violence and the dimension of group therapy as a way of encountering other human beings, Here and Now, as well as to make alive their past experience in the Here and Now. This means that through transference and countertransference and, above all, through the process of externalizing an internalized in- terpersonal matrix through the matrix of the member patients and the person of the therapist we can get hold of the interpersonal fab- ric that enforced structural violence as well as its downfall in the personality structure of the individual patient. Through the pattern of the differentiated developmental state of a patients ego-functions, by his group-dynamical position and by the interpersonal fabric he "produces", we can diagnose, what structural violence did to this particular patient, how it damaged him in his personality-growth, and how it cripples him in his interpersonal ca- pacities. Though structural violence is not enforced as direct personal vio- lence we have to be aware of the fact that it is yielded by the pri- mary group as a catalysts of structural violence. Here it becomes important to understand the interrelationship between group-dynamics in small groups, e.g. families and large social groups, like church, army, political organizations etc.. Last not least, we have to scrutinize the role of the group-analyst and analytic group-therapist in the process of making personal structures of structural violence visible, fellable, and enable a retrieval of ego-development. The living-condition of a therapist is as much a necessary condition (the group-dynamics of his surrounding group, he chooses to live in) as is his own ego-structure with its own downfalls of structural violence. This will determine the bor- ders and limits, within which this particular therapist will be able to cope with structural violence in his patients. Much we owe to our Argentinean group-analysts, who try to give us a profound analysis of their entanglement with totalitarianism as an extreme version of structural violence. We should also think of German analysts, who until recently didn't even dare to look upon their degree of enme- shment with their nations nazi-past. However, we also should be aware of the fact that there exist social times and circumstances, favorable to the becoming aware of structu- ral violence and also on the opposite unfavorable to the making con- scious of the frozen, unconscious power structures of a given soci- ety. ******************************************************************** At the end of the sixties the Oslo social scientist and peace researcher Johan Galtung (1975) developed a sociological understand- ing of structural violence. He recognized that violence also mani- fests itself in unequal opportunities resulting from unequal distri- bution of power, in differences in powers of decision-making regarding the distribution of resources, educational opportunities, health services etc.. His objective was to describe that apart from personal violence in relations between individuals there is a latent violence which acts indirectly but with consequences no less cruel and brutal than those of direct personal violence. Galtung defines violence as the cause of the difference between or of the failure to reduce the difference between actual and poten- tial achievement of an individual , as well as a whole group. Galtung himself applied his concept of structural violence par- ticularly to the analysis of the rich northern states compared with the poorer southern states. An example, probably well known is that of the Nestle company, which spent millions of US$ on an advertising campaign for artificial milk powder for babies in many states of Africa and South East Asia, which gave them a high turnover for this product. A direct consequence of the increased feeding with artifi- cial milk, however, was a considerable increase in child mortality in these countries. The reason was the weakening immune system of the children which was no longer fortified by human milk, plus the added risk of the frequently high bacterial contamination of the water. Thus, through its financial power, Nestle created a market for itself, awakening needs in the consumers, then exploiting these needs, selling its goods, earning million of U.S.$ but at the same time subjecting the consumers, the children, to atrocious violence. A few years ago Nestle stopped this advertising campaign and has, I believe, sponsored a number of water well projects, as a compensa- tion, so to speak. An essential characteristic of structural violence is that it is not an act of violence between individuals and effecting only indi- viduals but that whole population groups are affected. A further characteristic of structural violence is that the peo- ple affected by it are not conscious of it. This lack of transpar- ency, this inability to see structural violence when one is person- ally subjected to it is perhaps its most insidious characteristic. Recently a polish sociologist (Jan Jerschina, 1990) raised a "beautiful" example for this. In a lecture at the University of Cra- cowia he told his audience of polish students that polish women are severely discriminated, because they get for the same work only half the wage and, because of the prevailing paternalistic structures at home they have to work almost twice the hours men have to. After his lecture the female students came up to him and told him with a tone of deep conviction, but we do feel equal, we don't feel discrimi- nated. In our clinical work we are confronted daily with the manifesta- tions of structural violence, wether in the form of the mentally ill or for instance in our work in the F.R.G. the 2.5 million unemployed in our country whose human qualities are trodden on and neglected, wether in the form of child battering or of the almost 5 million foreigners of whom many are not integrated and often live in isola- tion on the margin of our society. It is my purpose here to show a connection between the personally experienced prohibition of identity under which the individual lives, with his consequent mental suffering or even psychopathologi- cal symptoms, and the structural violence identifiable in social structures, group dynamic constellations, the distribution of power and again the corresponding destroyed or deficient individual per- sonality structure. An example which, I think, vividly demonstrates structural vio- lence is that of the farm laborers of El Salvador. In the course of a land reform they were given their own land, the land which had previously belonged to their masters, large landlords. Today they are asking for permission to give the land back to their landlords and to have them as their masters again. What is the reason for this? Firstly they lack know-how. In many cases they know too little about how to farm the land effectively. Secondly they lack credits to enable them to buy good-quality seed. Thirdly, they lack an effi- cient sales organization to enable them to sell their crops profit- ably. It is therefore understandable that they should call in des- peration for their masters, because they were better off living in virtual serfdom than they were living autonomously. This example already leads us to suspect that structural violence must have had some sort of effect, so to say downfall on the person- ality structure of the individual. It is conceivable that other farm workers might have succeeded in building up an agricultural market- ing system of their own. In the discussion between men and women we can study how this factor has become part of the personality structure. On the one side it is a manifestation of structural violence when many women sit at home, dependent on their husbands and only the men go to work but on the other hand we also see that when they do go out, many women are at a loss because they also lack a large number of abilities - wether because they have had no qualified training or because they are unable to assert themselves. The quota allotting system by itself is no way out of this dilemma, but only if other elements are added, giving learning opportunities to women and if they are integrated in the decision making process. I want to point out that it is a further characteristic of structural violence that it always strives to preserve the current balance of power and to make change impossible. Scientific theory formation, research and practice too are influ- enced by and imbued with structural violence. On the basis of aggression theories I would like to demonstrate the influence of structural violence on the formation of scientific theories. If an aggression theory postulates that man is by nature, biolog- ically destined to be aggressive and destructive and that nothing can change this, the only consequence can be that neither large nor small social groups are given any attention or analysis. Konrad Lorenz's theory is a good example of this. But it could also be said that Freud, with his biologically based drive theory, also remained within the current framework of structural violence. On the other hand an aggression theory which looks for the causes of destructive aggression in the relationship between the surrounding group and the individual, as was postulated by Dollard and Miller (1939) or in Germany was discussed by Ammon (1970) for example, possesses a con- siderably greater potential for destabilization and making conscious structures of structural violence. Moreover, I see it as a further characteristic of structural vio- lence when the personal needs and opportunities of the individual are disregarded and he is forced into the preformed framework of a theory of whatever kind. But structural violence is reflected not only in aggression theo- ries but also in the division of labour, current in the scientific world today between psychology and the political sciences, for example, or between psychology and legal sciences, and more seri- ously in the division between scientists and professional politi- cians to whom the responsibility for life or death has been dele- gated. This so-called scientific division of labour institutionalizes the impossibility of revealing the forces underly- ing the exercise of structural violence. Structural violence is not only difficult to perceive when one is subjected to it, it is also manifested in the inability to develop, perceive and differentiate needs. I see all conditions which encourage the isolation of the indi- vidual and whole groups and hinder their ability to enter into lively contact with others and to undergo further development as manifestations of structural violence. This implies also a direct relationship to group-psychotherapy, e.g. the capacity to participate in groups. The extend of not lived human potentialities at any particular time and in any particular place thus bears direct relationship to the extent of structural violence. In this connection the Zurich psychoanalyst Paul Parin (1983) fittingly characterized the narrow-minded petty bourgeois, a charac- ter we frequently find in group psychotherapy as the overly well adapted, seemingly compliant patient. But this character can also be well found in the countries of former so called "real socialism", as I was told by Eastern European psychotherapist. The petty bourgeois is a person who suppresses and changes his needs until they conform to what his social circumstances offer him. It is typical for the petty bourgeois that when his children go to school he does not give them support to enable them to face the restrictions and frustrations which school imposes on them. Instead he hands his children over to the teacher and the institution or the ideal they represent. Thus, when a child goes home anxious and uncertain he cannot rely on his parents saying "we'll support you" but it is faced with the petty bourgeois attitude that "the school and the teacher are right and you must do as they say". It is not the parents who decide what is good and what is bad, but the ideals represented by the teachers. Underlying this development is an attitude of the primary group towards the child which does not convey the message "You are good, you are important whatever happens" but instead that wether you are good is doubtful and that it is not yet certain whether you will be accepted. This petty bourgeois ego-structures, which most of us probably have to a varying degree, is a reflection of structural violence which prevents the growing of differentiated ego- and group-struc- tures. On the other hand, I do understand all conditions, which encour- age differentiation of individuals and the differentiation of group-structures (internal differentiation, as well as differenti- ated relationships to a variety of other groups) as a factor, stand- ing up against structural violence. Thus the spread of a western- type mono-culture, over-bureaucracy with its dead institutions as well as the trend to a "world-government" composed of super-powers are factors, prone to exert and increase structural violence. When encountering structural violence we face challenges on two different levels: Firstly, there is the ability to perceive, where structural vio- lence manifests itself, where structural violence is exercised and from which power structures it emanates. Secondly, there is the ability to combat structural violence, to develop alternative structures of interpersonal relations and to develop and offer alternative group structures. I therefore postulate that the ability to form groups and to form a network of human relationships is the starting point for combat- ting structural violence. An example of this in our recent West-German history is the green movement, which has grown from a number of small interest groups and feminist groups which, in the course of a long process of talking to each other and getting to know each other, have joined together to form a large group or political party. In my opinion this represents the interlinking of groups whose original objective was to at least attain awareness of structural violence. The starting point for this was a feeling of being personally affected, wether with regard to an atomic power station, the destruction of nature by building a road, the deformation of cities, an initiative against the curtailment of civil rights or in the many other groups which feel personally threatened by the insane arm race and build-up. The characteristic feature of these groups is that personal feel- ings are perceived, taken seriously and shared. A further character- istic is that the feeling of the individual members of the group are not split off, but are integrated in the group and used as the starting point for new perceptions, investigations and actions. What is new here is that the feelings are placed in a social context. I would like to illustrate this with an example. It is possible to be afraid of the atomic bomb or of the arms race and nevertheless permanently convince oneself that it is all only in our own interest because the potential enemy is so strong. It is possible to be afraid of the risk of an accidental atomic war or a nuclear accident on the territory of our republic - as was some time ago brought home to all of us by a Pershing II accident near Heilbronn - and never- theless to split off this fear and perceive it in the guise of a threat by the enemy. Or it is possible in the framework of a group, a secure group-dynamic setting, for this fear to be perceived and to lead to a course of actions. Only in the interaction with a group which is not existentially dependent on conformity with the existing power structures, can a human level of perception develop which permits the individual to feel and conceptualize the structural violence to which he is sub- jected. It seems to me that a feeling of personal concern is the most important momentum for the perception of structural violence and for the ability to stand up against it. I would like to postulate that a feeling of emotional concern can be a signal that one is subjected to structural violence and that on the other hand the ridiculing, waving aside and disregarding of feelings of personal concern is a manifestation of structural vio- lence. I would like to illustrate this hypothesis on the basis of the treatment of death and birth. The expectation that with today's medicine death is merely an avoidable biological accident has led amongst other things to an ever increasing exclusion of death from our daily life. I see this as a manifestation of structural vio- lence, however, tearing apart the fabric of human life and denying people the opportunity to live life to the full and to experience and express all possible feelings. I see the exclusion of dying and death from the remaining context of life not only as an individual problem of dealing with fear or as a problem arising from destructive or deficient small group situa- tion but as the reflection of the social situation of a large group in which the individual is deformed to a cogwheel in the machinery of the whole and where the individuals' feelings concerning dying and death are regarded not as an integral part of life, but as an obstacle to efficient work. From the point of human opportunities available to the individual to experience and to express feelings and to share them with others, the relegation and exclusion of the dying within the medical machin- ery poses an enormous restriction on the life potential of individu- als and groups. In my opinion the way we deal with birth is similar to the way we deal with death and dying. The medical Association of North Rhine Westphalia in 1985 published statistics on birth and neonatal mor- tality. These showed that most birth take place on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and that neonatal mortality has increased by almost 80% within the last two years. That this is the case because most births are artificially induced and have to fit in with working hours of the staff is not mentioned. The increase in neonatal mor- tality officially is explained as a consequence of increasing car- diac and respiratory problems and is thus seen as a symptom in com- plete isolation and taken out of the human context of birth. This is biological, scientistic medicine at its worst. This appears to me to be a particularly blatant example of struc- tural violence stemming from a mechanistic understanding of human life and an absolutely inflexible hospital organization in which births are programmed and even though the father is present at the birth this is only a formality as the human context between the mother and father and the surrounding group of midwife and doctor is completely destroyed and the obstetric team is only a dead, inflexi- ble, pseudo-group. I think that the neonatal mortality associated with this is the direct manifestation of structural violence that the possibility of a creative human birth embedded in a group and a holistic life context has been destroyed and that this destruction of life opportunities is in fact a manifestation of structural vio- lence. I think that unconscious attitudes can also be a manifestation of structural violence, such as the unconscious and partly conscious assumption that all evil comes from without, in our case until recently particularly from the East. This assumption is in my opin- ion based on a continuously fostered attitude. I think one could say that this attitude lies on a continuum between conscious and uncon- scious. This desirable and encouraged basic mistrust as the founda- tion of a superficially seen military technocratic system robs us of many opportunities of human encounter. Max Scheler (1916) drew up and elucidated the criteria of the militaristic mentality - that its aim is to prevent human coopera- tion with the potential enemy. I think we have here not only an individual militaristic mentality but the manifestation of struc- tural violence, which is expressed most clearly in the concept and practice of deterrence. This is a practice which, so to speak, con- stantly anticipates war in order to subdue its possibly manifest forms. Would our defence not look very different if right from the cra- dle, in kindergarten, in school, in the family, we learnt to look forward to getting to know people of foreign cultures, to take part in exchange programs, to live in families of foreign countries and cultures and to work on joint projects with people of other cul- tures, if we learnt to see the human needs of our "enemy neighbors" as something from which we can learn and with which we can communi- cate. This unconscious hostile attitude with regard to meeting members of foreign nations and cultures, particularly members of so-called potential enemy nations, could not, in my opinion be a more exem- plary manifestation of structural violence as it helps to prevent any questioning of existing power structures. I would also like to point out that what happens psychologically at an international level in the framework of so-called arms control and balance of deterrence, takes place at a national level between citizens and in the relationship of state institutions toward citizens in the sense of a psychological infrastructure, frequently mirrored in our psy- chotherapeutic groups. What is repeated within the matrix of the group are not only fam- ily dynamics and psycho-dynamics but also social dynamics, that means the social position the patients primary group did have within the larger social systems is repeated by the patient, who takes a particular position, role and attitude within the group. I would like to illustrate this by the example of a patient who has no self confidence in his ability and who stems from an underdog family, who saw no chance in life to change their life-style. Or the dependent patient who at the age of 26 or 28 is still daily fed by his mother and isn't even fully aware of the inappropriateness of the quality of his relationship. He was brought up in a civil ser- vant, bureaucracy dependent family who couldn't even envision an in- dependent self-responsible life. Or, I think of the patient, who is permanently clinging to some fellow patient or preferably to the therapist to catch a glimpse of recognition and, of supposed love and attachment that shows him he is worth something. They reflect a primary group that was driven by the quest for public recognition, frequently enmeshed in a permanent quest for consumer goods, but al- ways pursued vain, superficial values, lacking any deeper relation- ship to their deeper identity needs. The most painful to watch maybe are the patients that permanently repeat and demonstrate that they have no right to be on this earth, that they are not wanted and that there is no place for them - they represent frequently our most suffering psychiatric patients and they reflect a deep rooted experience of their own families of being not admitted to human society. It is not hard to see that a system of mistrust and surveillance and of the assumption of wrong as the justification for further sur- veillance and restriction resembles paranoic illness. But we know from the psychopathology of paranoia that the struggle against the assumed persecutor inevitably leads to self-destruction as the sup- posed victim becomes the destructive persecutor. I should emphasize here that I do not mean that we should have blind faith in every- thing. I am talking here of the inability to judge adequately wether trust is appropriate or caution because real dangers are present. It is necessary to develop a realistic sensitivity and realistic per- ceptual capacities. Structural violence today is yielded on a global scale: The constant nuclear threat, air pollution etc. nourish continu- ously a sickening level of anxiety, poison interpersonal relation- ships with feelings of suspicion, different from natural disasters that in turn tend to unite mankind. These permanent man-made threats also give raise to destructive social moods that in turn effect families and most certainly their weakest members, the children. We thus can diagnose in our patients the effects of a cumulative traumatic social mood, that destroys the joy of life and kills the hope for the future and leads to various forms of depressive reactions, to a deeply rooted feeling of being unable to change one's fate, and last not least, to psychosomatic reactions, depression and other psychopathological reactions as crippled attempts, to encounter these threats. But in order not to fall pray to the mistake "all evil comes from without" it is important to look for the link between structural violence at the level of large groups and at the individual level. I have already postulated above that structural violence is also reflected in individual personality structures and then in turn itself takes effect and exercises structural violence. It is interesting in this context to look at examples of people who were embedded in a setting of structural violence and who then, as if through a sudden revelation, managed to withdraw from these structures. I am thinking here of atomic physicists who built the bomb and suddenly said "Stop! I'm not going on with this!", or of generals who, interestingly, often at the time of their retirement or shortly afterwards have dissociated themselves from the current military strategy. I am thinking here too of the example of the American R,Molander (1982), a nuclear engineer who had already acted as advisor to sev- eral US presidents and whose walls were covered with pins represent- ing the number of dead in atomic bombardments of Soviet towns until one day a girl-friend went into his room. At the sight of these pins representing 200,000, 5000,000, or 1,000,000 dead she was utterly shocked and shaken, as to her these pins were real human beings. This genuine concern and upset reached Molander and he retired from his position and called into being the" Ground Zero" movement in the US. I must confess that for me my polish as well as Jewish friends gave me a great deal of the courage to encounter structural vio- lence. Their example to go back to their country, though martial law had been established and they could have comfortably stayed in West-Germany, but even more their courage to visit and encounter the nation whose members had manslaughtered their family-members, this courage to bear their feelings and not to be stuck in a stereotyped view of other human beings touched a string in my mind and has become very important to me. In order to perceive structural violence it is necessary to have a boundary between the area where structural violence operates and the place where it is perceived and where it is possible to communi- cate about it. Giving trust and confronting the patient with his nihilism, help- ing him to experience his low self-esteem as ego-alien, as imposed upon him, helping him to value his emotional cues he senses, to re- sist ridicule and to increasingly acquire a feeling for his identi- ty-needs represent the first step towards restoring and freeing a destroyed identity-development. A further step, I don't want to discuss here in detail, is the importance of feelings of shame as an indicator of a compromised and injured personal integrity. Because we must be aware of the fact that structural violence wants to keep the balance of power as it is, it wants to control the needs and wishes of the individual and whole population groups, the capacity to sense own needs, to live an own identity is a permanent threat to the yielders of structural violence. This brings up the question of the enmeshment of the therapist with structural violence. This problem rises on two levels. First, is he the tool, the toy of structural violent forces, e.g. is he the cogwheel of a health insurance system that fosters me- chanical health and adaptive functioning but prevents the identity development of its members (the 20 year long psychosomatic patient is a typical example as well as the purely mechanistic view or the dominantly genetic view of somatic and psychic diseases). Already Freud preview the danger of the so-called medicalization of Psychoanalysis, that psychoanalytic therapy would be swallowed by psychiatry, adapted as one of its tools to adapt the patient more efficiently to existing powers structures with all its consequences of a complete compliancy with the prevailing suppression and the reigning powers that strive to maintain them. We always should be aware of the fact that in social roles the "Unconscious" is being frozen and tamed. Thus the role ascribed to the group therapist, the transference represents a danger and a chance at the same time. The chance to become aware, make visible, sensible the "frozen" unconscious, the petrified structural violence and at the other hand to further maintain and strengthen the pre- vailing system of structural violence. Because we are not only as- cribed roles by our patient, but also are the object of transfer- ences, role-prescriptions, and role-seductions by institutions society, government, health-insurance systems and others. This is exactly the point where the process of "social death", the detachment from societal, institutional seduction and enmeshment without loosing concern and without ceasing social-participation be- comes the focal process. Second is the question of is own personality structure and his internalization of structural violence. As an example of personalities who are able to resist structural violence I am thinking her of marginal figures in society who have the ability to place themselves outside the social arena and from there are able to perceive structural violence, to put it into words, and to gather groups about them in order to combat it. I am thinking here of Mao Tse Tung, for example, who although born of Chinese society and by no means rich in experience abroad, had the ability to dissociate himself from his society, to gather a group around himself and to go on the long march to combat structural vio- lence. Freud and his social death, his detachment from social recogni- tion is typical of people, who successfully combat structural vio- lence in the individual and in themselves. Thus, Mao initiated a large-scale campaign against illiteracy and each man in a marching column during the great march wear a large Chinese character on his back so that the man marching behind him could learn a new charac- ter. On the other hand I am thinking of places where areas free of structural violence occur and where strategies for the perception and combatting of structural violence can be developed, such as in the numerous peace and ecology groups. Quite obviously the Solidar- nosz movement belonged to this type of group. They form a boundary against peacelessness and environmental destruction and create an area where perception of our destructive way of dealing with our lives and our environment is often possible for the first time and where forces for change can grow. No wonder that these groups are often ridiculed or even forbid- den. But they also create an area in which discussion of the "I told you so!" effect is possible. I am thinking here of the examples, where, in the name of elimination of structural violence, the struc- turally non-violent and oppressed are given autonomy and sover- eignty, as in the case of the farm-workers in El Salvador, as well as many of those on social security and many women, where it sud- denly emerges after a few month that these people are not capable of handling the freedom given to them, destroy it and often turn against it by completely neglecting the nice apartments given to them, they prove incapable of bearing responsibility and exercising care and judgment. Such examples are used again and again by the wielders of structural violence to say "I told you so! I said all along that they are not capable of it". At the same time it is con- scientiously ignored that this is the outcome of deficient-destruc- tive personality structures of those concerned which are the product of structural violence and that a change in which the victims of structural violence are only formally liberated and given power, capital or knowledge is doomed to failure as the liberation from structural violence can only succeed if it goes hand in hand with the opportunity for a liberating compensatory ego-development. The Martinique black psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, who worked in Algeria argued already that the resolution of the colonial situation becomes only possible, when both parties, oppressed and oppressor succeed in giving up their petrified roles and rigid positions in favour of an interaction on a different level, e.g. getting to know each other, to learn from each other etc.. Only if the rigid culture of the oppressor does open up itself and experiences the oppressed culture as a brother-human culture, both cultures can learn from each other. To become aware of the interdependence of human cultures becomes only possible if the colonial attitude has been truly aban- doned. The separation process from the psychotherapeutic group, from the therapist represents, at its best, this "solution" of the colonial situation where structural violence ceases to exist and both recog- nize and respect each other as unique human organisms. However there is a long way to that goal. It is no great secret that the majority of the training insti- tutes in psychotherapy and group-analysis tend, themselves, to main- tain and perpetuate existing power-structures and are not very prone to help the therapist-to-be to bring to the open existing struc- tures of structural violence or even to profoundly question them and to oppose them. (I only would like to mention here the West-German system of the "adjunct title" of psychotherapy to medical doctors and its correspondent for psychologists. Its aim is to give the psychotherapist-to-be access to the health insurance money-pot and thus the status of a quasi civil-servant with all the financial securities and administrative imprisonments respectively). Experiences I found helpful in the process of becoming aware of and working through internalized structures of structural violence are encounters in culturally very heterogeneous groups, the longer living in completely foreign cultures, and the psychotherapeutic training under a member of a foreign culture, who is not a member of the prevailing power structure. The art and the skill in challenging internalized structures of structural violence is to enter into or to create situations of con- structive detachment that make it possible to become aware of own parts of the personality structure and of an internalized group-dy- namic which unconsciously is externalized and restored in the here and now again and again. And here I mean very powerful and very destructive structures. Jean Paul Sartre expressed it once very to the point: It is suffi- cient that our victims (by this he meant the victims of European culture and colonialism there and here) show us what we made of them to get an idea what we made out of ourselves. And thus I feel it the utmost task of any group-psychotherapist, who is not merely satisfied to be a cogwheel of the existing power- structure and a transmitter of structural violence, to continuously question himself and expose himself to situations that make possible the question, to what degree do I repress and oppress experiences that demand personal change, to what degree do I submit to an adap- tive medico-therapeutic repairshop enterprise that merely adapts the patient and alienates him even further from himself, and to what degree do I conduct scientific research under the control of a superego which is unyielding to human needs and to fellow human beings as well. Structural violence can only be perceived and combatted by indi- viduals and groups, who are able to perceive and tolerate fear. This requires relationships to other people, the security and protection of a constructive group with a positive basic mood. I think that many of our politicians are neither corrupt or evil but that they live in a personal and political environment which makes it impossible to perceive, let alone to tolerate fear. Iso- lated and cut off, without the support of a surrounding group, they work away, at the mercy of a sluggish and overpowered administrative apparatus, which often determines everything; so as to stand up to competition they try to make a name for themselves with what are often in reality insignificant details. They often have neither the inner nor the interpersonal freedom to sense or discuss anything of an existential, essential or significant nature and sadly they often do not have the ability to create for themselves a group of criti- cally supporting people. To combat structural violence we also need to combat the basic mistrust which exists at the basis of our technocratic system. A positive image of man, is a challenge to all forms of structural violence. To give women the vote, to determine over their body, to provide qualified and interesting or like Makarenko, to give crimi- nal youth the opportunity to be honest. In order to combat structural violence we also need to combat the scientific division of labour between universities and private institutions and the division of labour between different disci- plines which helps to preserve structural violence. In the struggle against structural violence we can, therefore, say "the road is the aim". The consideration of structural violence leads me to ask to what extent it is possible to combat structural violence at the level of the large social group. I am thinking here of freedom fighters such as Thoreau, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Thoreau was inspired by the writings and teachings of the Hindu religion, Ghandi by Thoreau and King by both. The philosophy of non-violence led Thoreau to the recognition that a citizen has the right and the duty to break laws which are against humanity. Ghandi developed satyagraha, a powerful concept combining love and strength, as the theoretical method which makes it possible to unify and motivate structurally non-violent groups and to change violent structures. King was convinced that Ghandi's method was the only moral and possible way for an oppressed group of people to fight against social injustice. With the concept of agape he himself tried to develop further an understanding of satyagraha as he saw it against his Christian background. For him Agape, understanding as the redeeming good will open to all people, was the form of love in the teachings of Christ with the help of which one could restore the loved community. Through agape he saw all human life as being in mutual relationship, all human beings as brothers, all humanity as a single process of development. I think that the importance of todays approach lies in the fact that there is a quantum leap in development. It is not necessary to avenge hate with hate in order to make the bitterness of this world even greater but to challenge the opponent at a developmentally higher, more differentiated level. The message to be given today is, in my opinion, that we should weave a net and establish relation- ships with many groups. What distinguishes us from Thoreau, Ghandi, and even King is that today many problems can not be resolved at a national level but can only be understood and changed in an interna- tional context. In international comparison the narrow-minded, petty bourgeois group behavior at the international level often becomes perceptible, visible, and open to change. This view emphasizes the importance of such international insti- tutions like the WHO, UNESCO, or the UN etc., that carry the poten- tial of opening an international and transcultural space, thus planting the seed for the perception of an invisible web of structural violence. This applies also for international scientific conferences. Literature: Ammon, G.(1970): Gruppendynamik der Aggression. Kindler, München Dollard, I. et al. (1939): Frustration and Aggression. Yale University Press, New Haven Fanon Frantz (19 ): Galtung, J.(1975): Strukturelle Gewalt. Rowohlt, Reinbeck Grossarth-Maticek, R.(1975): Revolution der Gestörten? Quelle und Meyer, Heidelberg Molander, R.(1982): Wie ich lernte die Bombe zu fürchten. Der Stern, Nr. 16 Makarenko Parin, P. (1983)): Der ängstliche Deutsche. Kleinbürger ohne Selbstbe- wußtsein. In: Die Seele und die Politik. Beltz, Basel Jerschina, J. (1990): Polish Parents in the Eighties and Nineties. The Systems we live in - Family Therapy Contexts, Cracow, September 2 -7, 1990 Rheinische Perinatalerhebung (1985): Rheinisches Ärzteblatt, 2 Sartre Scheler, M.(1916): Über Gesinnungs- und Zweckmilitarismus. Eine Studie zur Psychologie des Militarismus. Ges. Werke, Bd.6, Francke (1963), Bern Wallenberg Pachaly, A.v.(1983): The Capacity for Social Participation and the Capacity of Peace - thought on the Dynamic of Large Social Groups, 15.Symposium of the German Academy of Psychoanalysis, Munich Wallenberg Pachaly, A.v.(1984): Peace as a National and Personal Iden- tity Process. Address on the Occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Düsseldorf Teaching and Training Institut of Psychoanalysis Wallenberg Pachaly, A.v.(1990): The German Marriage - Intrapsychic, Interpersonal and International Dimensions of the Grman Unification. In: Massermann, Jules: Social Psychiatry and World Accords. Interna- tional Universitiy Press, New York
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