Violence or Dialogue? Psychoanalytic Insights on Terror and Terrorism

Synopsis:

Our understanding of terrorism since the events of September 11th 2001 has usually been channelled through the two dimensional lens of religion and politics. This important new work contributes a richer understanding of terrorism by examining a third dimension of individual and group psychology and demonstrates how insights garnered from the human psyche may be translated into more effective public policy.

Notes about the author(s):

Sverre Varvin, MD, PhD, is a training and supervising analyst, and a past President of the Norwegian Psychoanalytic Society. He is senior researcher at the Norwegian centre for studies on violence and traumatic stress, affiliated to the University of Oslo, and his main research areas are the traumatisation and treatment of traumatised patients, traumatic dreams, and psychoanalytic training. He has held several positions in the IPA (e.g. Vice-president, Board representative, member of research committees), and is currently chair of the program committee for the next IPAC in Prague, and a member of the China Committee.

Vamik D. Volkan, M.D. is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, an emeritus training and supervising analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute and the Senior Erik Erikson Scholar at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He was the Medical Director of the University of Virginia's Blue Ridge Hospital and director of the University of Virginia's Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction. He was a past president of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society, the Turkish-American Neuropsychiatric Association, and the American College of Psychoanalysts. He holds Honorary Doctorate degrees from Kuopio University, Finland and from Ankara University, Turkey.

He is the author or co-author of forty books and the editor or co-editor of ten more. He has served on the editorial boards of sixteen professional journals including the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He has published more than 400 scientific papers or book chapters. His work has been translated into many languages.