The nature of the first language is the subject of many myths and beliefs. It is believed that language is a supernatural gift and the grace of one or many gods. According to the Judeo–Christian culture to which I belong, there is no doubt that the first language was Hebrew. The belief that Hebrew was the original language comes from the text in the first book of Moses: ‘The Lord our God formed every beast of the field and every bird in the sky, and brought them to man to see what he would call them . . . Man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast in the field. And the whole earth was of one language and one speech’ (Genesis 11.1). But when the ‘children of men’ started to build the city and the tower of Babel, God punished their vanity, ‘Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech’. So the Lord scattered them all over the face of the earth, and they abandoned the building of the city (Genesis 11:7, 8). As we know, communication is the essence of psychotherapy. Linguistic diversity, as the consequence of God’s punishment, could therefore cause much trouble for the therapist and the patient in both individual and group psychotherapy, as they try to communicate and discuss their experience in different languages.
In the following article we will focus on the group analytic outlook on war. We will not only discuss the immeasurable suffering of soldiers, but also the civilian victims of wartime events. The correspondence between Einstein and Freud gives rise to many questions about the causes of wars. The life of every individual, since birth and through the earliest developmental processes, according to certain concepts, oscillates between the drives of Eros and Thanatos. During this processes, ‘inaudibility’, as Winnicott puts it, can take place, resulting in disorders and disruptions in the individual’s internal as well as external dialogue. We go on to consider how the ‘inaudibility’ and the consequences of war are dealt with in the Sophocles’ drama Antigone. As group analysts, in our contribution we have focused especially on the importance of group analytic treatment as a form of help for people suffering from PTSD, which Foulkes, the father of group analysis, realized as well. In the process of therapy, group members are able to verbalize the wordless world of trauma and face the deeper personality layers of their own past as well as the transgenerational transmission of aggression and other difficult feelings and experiences. The treatment may proceed on the individual basis as well.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.