Paradoxes of Belonging

Abstract

“Who am I?” “Where do I really belong?” “How can I cultivate a broad perspective on immediate contradictory self-states? These are profound questions for many Israelis. Two vignettes, one of a personal account, the other of a segment from an Israeli movie, are presented to illustrate the transformation sought in order to retrieve a secure experience of belonging and connect to a non-traumatic transcended self. The importance of a sense of belonging to an ultimate reality, which goes beyond personal experience, is accentuated. The author explores the taking of a spiritual journey, which opens up the path toward compassion and understanding of the complexities of belonging and identity. Complexity theory is shown to help the comprehension and acceptance of the paradoxes of belonging.

« Qui suis-je ? Où est ma place ? Comment puis-je englober des états contradictoires du soi ? » sont des questions lancinantes pour un grand nombre d’Israéliens. Un récit de vie personnel et un segment de film israélien viennent illustrer la transformation souhaitée pour développer un sentiment sécurisée d’appartenance et se connecter à un soi transcendé et non-traumatique. Faisant valoir l’importance de se relier à une réalité ultime au-delà de l’expérience individuelle, l’auteure explore l’itinéraire spirituel qui ouvre sur la compassion et sur la compréhension de la complexité inhérente à l’appartenance et à l’identité. La pensée complexe facilite l’intégration des paradoxes liés à ces deux besoins fondamentaux.

“Chi sono io?” “Dov’è che appartengo veramente? E “come riesco a coltivare una prospettiva ampia su stati del sé contraddittori nell’immediato?” sono domande profonde per molti Israeliani. Due vignette, una relativa ad un’esperienza personale, l’altra ad un segmento di un film israeliano, vengono presentate per illustrare la trasformazione cercata per trarne un rassicurante vissuto di appartenenza e entrare in rapporto con un sé trascendente non traumatico. E’ accentuata l’importanza di un senso di appartenenza ad una realtà ultima che va al di là dell’esperienza personale. L’Autrice indaga l’intraprendere un viaggio spirituale, che apre il sentiero verso la compassione e la comprensione delle complessità dell’appartenenza e dell’identità. La teoria della complessità è indicata come aiuto alla comprensione e all’accettazione dei paradossi dell’appartenenza e dell’identità.

Dieser Artikel beschreibt ein gänzlich neues Projekt, das die Israel Association for Self Psychology and the Study of Subjectivity ins Leben ruft, um damit geschwächte Bevölkerungsgruppen innerhalb der israelischen Gesellschaft zu erreichen. Für seine Umsetzung baut das Projekt auf einer selbstpsychologischen Ausbildung, dem Buddhismus und den Geisteswissenschaften auf. Es beruht auf dem grundlegenden Glauben an Kontextualität und Verbundenheit auf. Diesbezüglich vervollständigt und bereichert der Buddhismus die Selbstpsychologie.

“¿Quién soy yo?” “A dónde pertenezco?” “¿Cómo puedo cultivar una perspectiva amplia acerca de mis estados del self contradictorios?” son preguntas profundas para muchos israelís. Presento dos viñetas, una de una narrativa personal, la otra de una parte de una película israelí, para ilustrar la transformación buscada para recuperar la experiencia segura de pertenencia y conectar con el self no traumático. Se acentúa la importancia del sentimiento de pertenencia a una realidad fundamental, que está más allá de la experiencia personal. La autora explora la experiencia de emprender un trayecto espiritual, que abra el camino hacia la compasión y la comprensión de las complejidades de la pertenencia y la identidad. La teoría de la complejidad aparece como una ayuda en la comprensión y aceptación de las paradojas de la pertenencia.

Keywords:

• belonging
• compassion
• complexity
• fragmented self
• interconnectedness
• meditative listening
• pre-traumatic self
• ruptured identity
• transformation
• trauma
• unknown potentiality

Notes

¹ Winnicott (1971), in his introduction to “Playing and Reality” writes: “the value for every human individual who is not only alive and living in this world but who is also capable of being infinitely enriched by exploitation of the cultural link with the past and with the future. This extension is the basic theme that concerns me in this book” (p. xii). Kulka (2003), in his introduction to “Playing and Reality” elaborates this view: “Man is defined both as an imminent and a transcendent entity. This is to say, man is a finite and an infinite creature, this is the essence that life consists of … at any point in time. Whereas traditional psychoanalysis defined men through their imminent qualities and regards development as the relinquishment of illusion and mature mourning, Winnicott presented to psychoanalysis a radical attitude that consists on the idea of continuous creation of life and the world” (p. 12).

² See Hillel Halkin, commentary, “The Waltz with Bashir” Two-step, March 2009: On June 6, 1982, following the collapse of a year-long truce between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the Israeli army invaded a Lebanon torn by years of civil war. It did so after the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which controlled most of the Lebanese south and had its headquarters in the western half of Beirut, had directed rocket and artillery fire at northern Israel. The PLO, for its part, was responding to an Israeli air strike on Beirut, carried out in retaliation for an attempted Palestinian assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London. The Israeli government had made no secret of its belief that a showdown with the PLO in Lebanon was inevitable; rumors had circulated widely of a military alliance with Lebanon’s Christians, whose main militia, the Falange, was led by a pro-Israeli politician named Bashir Gemayel.

Folman’s unit was in the Lebanese capitol in mid-August, when the siege ended with the capitulation of the PLO’s forces and their expulsion to Tunisia, and was still there in mid-September, when Bashir Gemayel, a pro-Israeli newly elected president, was assassinated. In the aftermath of his death, revenge-seeking Falangists, on an Israel Defense Forces-supported mission to flush out remaining PLO fighters from the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, massacred close to a thousand of the camps’ inhabitants. Soon afterwards, Israel was harshly criticized for its alleged role in the massacre, both from the outside and from inside; 400,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against this occurrence, refusing to let this tragedy pass unnoticed. As a consequence, Israel withdrew from the Beirut area and the war was effectively over.

The movie depicts a soldier who finds himself in the midst of this terrible massacre.

³ Symington (2012), in his lecture “Psychoanalysis: The Noumenon Contrasted with the Phenomenon” describes the true nature of psycho-analysis and uses Kant’s distinction between noumenon and phenomenon to distinguish between its manifestations and its substance.

⁴ Winnicott’s (1967) concept of potential space … Bion’s (1965) concept of O.

⁵ In the summer of 2011, the thousands of protesters in Israel coined the concept “The New Israelis;” they called for a return to the fundamental ethical values of the state of Israel, its innocent raison d’être.

⁶ In the Kiddush, a prayer that is said on Friday before Shabat, one thanks God for having “chosen us (the Jewish people) out of all nation.” Lately this sentence has been changed, in some circles, and people thank God for having chosen us (the Jewish people) as all nations.

⁷ Feldman and Laub (1994) link trauma as experience outside the range of comprehension; it is blindly repeated until someone bears witness to the story that “cannot be witnessed” (pp. 68–69). Memories happen through testimony.

⁸ Anna Ornstein (1994), referring to Kohut, writes: “Kohut helped us appreciate the fact that it is not possible to understand the inner world of an individual in the therapeutic situation without placing that individual in the particular historic-cultural context in which he or she grew up …” (p. 132). She continues and suggests that structuring the narrative of memories is a process that structures the self, contributes to the reestablishment of self-cohesion and heals the vertical split between experiences as they are lived and as they are remembered. Finally she argues that retrieved memories will be accompanied with deep sorrow and grief, indicating that the increase in self cohesion makes it possible to accommodate that which previously threatened the self with fragmentation.

⁹ Amy Eldridge (1997) writes: “The therapist and the patient must co-construct a meaningful narrative in which these memories are able to undergo structural transformation and become elements of the patient’s self experience” (p. 83).