On the side of good or evil

ABSTRACT

In war the world falls into good and evil. This calls for clear positioning. A Ukrainian colleague demanded that the patient know which side the therapist is on. Dealing with this attack on the evenly suspended attention catapulted the author into a relationship determined by war. How do early childhood affects and drive impulses shape the relationship between people at war and those not at war? What psychological prerequisites contribute to finding a bearable way of facing the trauma of war? In lieu of an answer, Bion’s war experiences and the soldiers’ calling for their mother point to the central function of the object relationship. Touching on Winnicott’s concept of ruthless love, the author finally arrives at unconditional love as a prerequisite.

KEYWORDS:

• War
• regression
• eruption of drives
• Bion
• calling for the mother

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Patient anonymization statement

Potentially personally identifying information presented in this article that relates directly or indirectly to an individual, or individuals, has been changed to disguise and safeguard the confidentiality, privacy and data protection rights of those concerned, in accordance with the journal’s anonymization policy.

Notes

1. Melanie Klein (1940) points out that in war resorting to the defence mechanism of splitting already represents a considerable psychic ability: ‘An important step in development is the capacity to allow oneself to split the imagos into good and bad ones which goes with the capacity to trust one’s constructive tendencies and love feelings. Only thus is it possible to hate with full strength what is felt to be evil in the external world – to attack and destroy at the same time protecting oneself with one’s good internal objects as well as external loved objects, country etc., against the bad things’ (Klein, 1940, p. 98).

2. Name changed to ensure anonymity.

3. All three texts were published in the War Memoirs edited by Francesca Bion (Bion, 2015 [1997]).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the City of Vienna / Stadt Wien Kultur.

Notes on contributors

Thomas Jung

Thomas Jung psychoanalyst and group analyst for adults, children and adolescents. Member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). Co-Chair of the Forum for the Psychoanalysis of Children (EPF). Editorial board member of the German Annual of the IJP. Works in private practice in Vienna.