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ABSTRACT This paper applies psychoanalytic and psychohistorical
insights to the understanding of the recent events in Kosovo, through an
analysis of Serbia’s first couple. It illuminates the dynamics and
primitive defenses of the Milosevic couple from a psychoanalytic and
psychohistorical perspective. The interaction of the couple is viewed as a
narcissistic/borderline relationship, whereby each one stirs up some
unresolved unconscious fantasy in the other. There is not only a “dance”
between the couple, but also a “dance” between their psychodynamics. Also
discussed are the dynamics of the relationship between the Serb leader and
Serb masses, against the background of their child rearing practices and
treatment of women. The theoretical approach draws mainly from
self-psychology, object relations, group psychology, and psychohistory.
The paper also provides a dramatization, or “Fantasy Analysis,” of what
would occur if the Milosevic couple came in for conjoint treatment. The
mock session is not an example of the therapist’s technique, and its
relevance is of a psychohistorical nature, rather than a psychotherapeutic
one.
The Role of Psychohistory
I first ventured into psychohistory by delving into the Middle Eastern
historical, mythological, psychological, and religious past. I observed
the political interaction between the Arabs and the Jews, their “dance,”
and felt compelled to understand what it is that bonds/binds individuals
or groups in on-going, circular, painful battles, whereby conflict
resolution becomes virtually impossible. I referred to two recurring myths
in the Bible and the Koran which had significance in fueling the
Arab-Israeli conflict. The first myth is the belief that Jews are God’s
“chosen people” (a narcissistic diagnosis), and the second that the Arabs
are an “orphan” society, the “abandoned” children of God (a borderline
diagnosis). Derived from these mythic origins are old hurts and injuries
deeply rooted in age-old sentiments that continually resurface, giving
rise to many shared collective group fantasies. It also appeared to me
that the Arab-Israeli conflict had striking similarities to conflicts in
marital discord between narcissistic and borderline personalities that I
had observed in my fledgling clinical practice. This confluence of
psychoanalysis and psychohistory led to my doctoral dissertation “The
Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Psychoanalytic Study” (Lachkar, 1983), a kind of
a marriage of psychoanalysis and psychohistory. As my practice grew, I
began to notice more and more couples that could be classified as
narcissistic and borderline, which led publication of my first book,
The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on
Marital Treatment (Lachkar, 1992).
What is it that perpetuates conflict and makes individuals sacrifice
their own lives and resort to self-destructive behavior? To find these
answers we need to begin by analyzing cultural patterns handed down from
generation to generation, embedded in the very identity of the group, and
expressed through myths, ideology, religion, and childrearing practices.
For decades, critics have questioned whether psychologists have had any
business considering moral and political issues. Is there justification
for analyzing groups in individual terms, let alone applying diagnostic
categories? Many claim that it is difficult enough making distinctions
between individuals, let alone in a group diagnosis. For a long time
psychotherapists have shied away from psychohistory, claiming that we are
a group of non-scientific dramatists making wild speculative
interpretations. After all, psychotherapy was originally intended for the
individual.
Psychoanalysis is to the individual dreamer what psychohistory is to
the culture’s mythology, and it is currently crystallizing as an important
method of historical research and discipline (Loewenberg, 1985). The
psychohistorical study of group psychodynamics offers a wealth of
knowledge into the primitive nature of these yet to be discovered
emotional regions. On a more grandiose note, I assumed that, since one can
understand Arabs and Jews, why not other warring relationships?
The Milosevices as a Narcissistic/Borderline Couple
If I were doing conjoint therapy with the Milosevices, I would diagnose
them as a narcissistic/borderline, the kind of couple I have described in
my book on marital therapy. Because of the dominance of omnipotence,
self-involvement, grandiosity, pomposity, excessive entitlement and
demands for power, I would diagnose Slobodan as the narcissist. Because of
the perverse way Mirjana manipulates and fuses with her husband, I would
diagnose her as the borderline (those dominated by retaliation,
abandonment, and a “false self”). Basking in the reflection of the Serb
leader’s gaze and power, she mirrors his every act. Her “false self” and
tendency to collude with her husband’s aggression and horrific acts of
destruction are sufficient to support a diagnosis of a borderline
disorder. Although, they do not appear to be in conflict with one another,
both share a delusional system, a folie a deux, akin to Siamese twins tied
at the borders of denial and victimization.
Defining a Narcissistic/Borderline Relationship
The narcissistic/borderline relationship examines a particular kind of
relational bond, which I have clinically observed and diagnosed as the
narcissistic/borderline couple. An individual with a borderline character
is inclined to attract as an object choice a narcissistic personality. I
then speculate as to what it is that bonds/binds these partners together
and why they stay in collusive and/or painful conflictual relations. These
are two personality types who enter into a “dance,” that fulfills and
stirs up each other’s conscious and unconscious needs. The revelations are
that each partner needs the other to play out his or her own personal
relational drama. Within these beleaguered relationships are
developmentally arrested people who bring together old hurts, sentiments,
traumas, and archaic injuries. In conjoint psychotherapy, it is noted how
certain dynamic mechanisms of the narcissist (guilt, grandiosity,
idealization, withdrawal) can arouse intense anxieties in the borderline,
and conversely, how the dynamics of the borderline (shame, envy,
splitting, massive denial, abandonment, persecutory anxieties) arouse
intense feelings of guilt and self-hatred in the narcissist. These couples
enter into what I have referred to as “a dance,” characterized by their
ongoing, circular never-ending patterns of behavior to understanding that
conflict.
The Narcissist
The narcissist is the special child of God, who has an exaggerated
sense of self, is preoccupied with self, has excessive entitlement
fantasies, and when not properly mirrored will respond with withdrawal or
isolation. The most common archaic injury is the mother who usurped the
child from number one position of “His Majesty the Narcissist,” as he is
replaced from the throne of the high chair to make way for a new sibling.
Narcissists often live in narcissistic nostalgia, always yearning to
recapture the time when mommy and baby were once living in perfect harmony
and symbiotic bliss. They grow up believing the world owes them something,
are dominated by such defenses as guilt, idealization, omnipotence,
grandiosity, lack of empathy for others, and will relentlessly hold to
archaic hurts and injuries. When the personal sense of pride has been
threatened, they will respond with narcissistic rage. Because dependency
needs stir up such intolerable states of vulnerability, narcissists cannot
tolerate having needs and unwittingly project them into others. They
confuse healthy dependency needs with parasitic ones and bond with
underdog types (victims, borderlines, dependent personalities) “It’s is
you that is the needy one! Me! I don’t need anyone. I don’t need you and I
don’t need this treatment!”
Different Kinds of Narcissists
Expanding beyond the domain of ordinary narcissism, there are many
different kinds of narcissists. The grandiose self is the emotional virus
that infects and invades the relational love bond. There is the
anti-social narcissist, histrionic narcissist, obsessive-compulsive
narcissist, depressive narcissist, but for our purposes here I would like
to call attention to the “malignant” narcissist. At the domestic level,
although the “malignant” narcissist may not be a national figure or a
ruthless dictator, but he may be a powerful, aggressive, and controlling
partner. The object bond between a sadistic partner and a paralyzed victim
is a familiar clinical theme (Kernberg, 1992). Usually, the “malignant”
narcissist is a leader, someone who acts out his omnipotent sadistic
fantasies under the guise of a “good cause.” (Slobodan Milosevic fits this
description: “We drove out the Kosovars for a good cause.”) The good cause
thus becomes the rationale for their destructive acts. These leaders also
exhibit psychopathic features: sadism, paranoia, and self-righteous
attitudes.
The Borderline
The borderline is the one dominated by shame/blame defenses,
persecutory, abandonment anxieties, and such primitive defenses as
splitting, projection, projective identification, omnipotent denial and
magical thinking. Borderline patients often form parasitic bonds to
maintain some semblance of relatedness (addictions, abusive relations,
suicidal threats, psychosomatic illness). Because the borderline does not
have much of a sense of self, they tend to fuse, collude or go along with
their objects. “I’ll do anything, just don’t leave me!” Unlike the
narcissist, the borderline does not feel entitled, is continually
questioning his/her identity, and will do anything to prove they exist.
Searching for the excitement often becomes the replacement for intimate
attachments to offset internal deadness. “When I mutilate myself, it
hurts, but at least I know I’m alive.” When threatened, borderlines tend
to lash out with retaliatory responses (Lachkar, 1992, 1998), and will
spend the rest of their remaining lives, getting back, getting even to
those who have betrayed or abandoned them (real or imagined). As a
consequence the borderline personality has poor impulse control, poor
reality testing, impaired judgment, and cannot learn from experience.
Borderlines frequently perpetuate the cycle by repeating the same behavior
again and again. Through traumatic bonding, they enact the painful
experience, either self or other inflicted.
Theoretical Contributors
Psychoanalytic insights add a great deal to our understanding of this
political and relational conflict. The following are some contributors
whose theories have informed this study.
Melanie Klein
Klein took the focus off Freud’s emphasis on the father toward the
importance of the infant’s bond to the mother and the breast, as crucial
to the child's development. She distinguished between the "good” and “bad”
breast, claiming that if the infant internalizes a "good breast" that
child will grow up to feel the world if a warm and loving place. If, on
the other hand, the child internalizes a "bad breast" that child may grows
up experiencing the world as hostile, dangerous and persecutory
environment. According to Klein, a child, a patient (let alone a group or
a government), cannot grow or develop without the capacity to mourn,
grieve, face losses, tolerate guilt, and take responsibility for past
transgressions. Klein (1957) derived two positions, each having their own
corresponding anxieties: (1) the paranoid schizoid position (persecutory
anxiety) and (2) the depressive position (depressive anxiety). The
movements between the paranoid schizoid and the depressive positions are
crucial for integration, as are the infant’s capacity to move from a state
of fragmentation to that of wholeness. Within these positions, Klein
entertained us with a drama of psychodynamic structures comprised of many
intricate interrelated dynamics (shame, guilt, envy, jealousy, and greed)
as primary forces interacting within a primitive internal world. People,
groups and nations who do not come to terms with guilt of past
transgressions (abuse, violence, torture, war crimes) never enter the
depressive position, a state of reparation, where genuine expressions of
remorse, along with the wish to repair the damage (Lachkar & Berton,
1997). I think these two positions are particularly important in
understanding conflict.
Wilfred Bion
Bion (1959) made major contributions to our understanding of group
dynamics. (See Group Psychology/Leaders and Myths and Work Group and Basic
Assumption Group sections, below.)
W.R.D. Fairbairn
In both political and relational conflict, the question often arises, “Why
do people stay in painful conflictual relations?” Why can’t they merely
bargain or negotiate? Fairbairn (1940), more than anyone, has offered
insights that go beyond Klein to help us understand why people remain
bonded to bad or painful external or internal objects. He constructed an
entire internal object world comprised of multitudinous internal objects.
He established two forms of attachments: (1) the craving for a
tantalizing, frustrating, sadistic, betraying or unavailable object, and
(2) the bond to the unloving insatiable object. Kosovo, as the sacred
space of the Serbs in this study, may be seen as both the tantalizing and
abandoning object. These dynamic structures provide further meaning as to
why people will remain forever faithful to a bad object. One’s devotion to
a bad object, according to Fairbairn, is preferable to “no object” at all
(annihilation anxiety fears).
Otto Kernberg
Kernberg’s (1995) understanding of the use or misuse of aggression
provides valuable guidelines to our understanding of regressive love
bonds. He describes different kinds of love bonds, distinguishing between
the normal and the pathological. His premise is that in normal love, the
relationship overcomes conflict. In pathological love, conflict overpowers
the relationship. It is aggression that goes in the wrong direction,
implying that people who have been traumatized are like emotional cripples
because they link their defenses to eroticism and sexual excitement. When
primitive defenses (like envy) take over, they dominate and infect the
love bond. Just think what happens when highly eroticized emotional
sadomasochistic relational ties are operative in political groups?
Donald Winnicott
Winnicott (1965) offers us three basic important concepts: (1) the
therapeutic holding environment, (2) the importance of bonding via
different kinds of mothering experiences, and (3) the importance of the
transitional space. These concepts are crucial for the safety and freedom
of the patients’ free associations and free floating thoughts. The holding
environment and transitional space are crucial to the argument of this
paper, because children who grow up in abusive environments are more
likely to act out in destructive ways and turn to regressive and primitive
defenses. Governments that suppress democracy and human rights deprive
people of their most fundamental needs.
Primitive Defenses and Psychodynamics
Just as there is a dance between the couple, there is also a dance
between their psychodynamics, between splitting and projective
identification, shame and guilt, envy and jealousy, omnipotence and
dependency, and attachment and detachment. Let us examine these concepts.
Splitting vs. Projective Identification
Klein (1957) offers us two major concepts which she refers to as
splitting and projective identification. Splitting relates to ambivalence
toward the object and persecutory anxiety as it occurs in the paranoid
schizoid position. In this stage the infant cannot maintain the notion
that mother is both good and bad, “Mother is good when she is here, but
bad when she is not here.” In the depressive position, the healthy child
is able to integrate good and bad, make decisions, and has a clearer view
of reality. Projective identification is a primitive form of communication
for getting rid of intolerable anxiety. It is an unconscious psychic
process, whereby one disclaims some unwanted or disavowed aspect of the
self, and translocates it into another (partner or perceived enemy). The
projector’s primary aim is to unconsciously coerce the other to behave in
a certain way. It is the nature of projective identification that weakens
the psyche, strips the self (or the group) of resources, and generates
helplessness. Part of projective identification is the introjective/projective
process. It is most effective in showing how one person (group or leader),
can project a negative feeling into the other, and how the other is
inclined to identify or over-identify with that which is being projected.
When there is early trauma, the intensity of these internal introjections
are felt to be tantamount to flaming bombs ready to explode.
Shame vs. Guilt
Shame is inextricably linked to dependency needs, and is the virus that
invades the psyche. It is more pronounced than guilt and occurs in the
paranoid schizoid position, and a matter between the person the group or
society.
Guilt is a higher form of development than shame and has an internal
punitive voice which operates at the level of the superego. It occurs in
the depressive position, followed by the desire to make reparation, to
take responsibility for past acts, transgressions or wrongdoings. Shame is
associated with isolation and being abandoned from the group, tribe or
society. Guilt is a reaction against an act of doing and the remorse for
that act (Lansky, 1995). Shame is the preoccupation with what others
think, while guilt is primarily a matter between a person and his
conscience.
Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to expand on different
kinds of guilt, it is noteworthy to mention that guilt can also relate to
a sadistic superego, a superego running amok. Ethnic cleansing is an
example of this type, the need to cleanse in order to get rid the “dirty
Jews” or the “dirty Kosovars.”
Envy vs. Jealousy
Envy, a part object relationship, is destructive in nature, and is
considered to be the most primitive and fundamental emotion. It is not
based on love, and its intent is to destroy that which is envied.
Jealousy, on the other hand, is a whole object relationship, whereby one
desires the object, but does not seek to destroy it. It has a healthy
component in that one desires to be part of the oedipal unit, the pack, or
the group.
Omnipotence vs. Dependency
The discussion of omnipotence and dependency is crucial in this
analysis, because children whose formative years are insufficient in
maternal caretaking capacities grow-up never learning how to develop
healthy dependency attachments. In order to ward off intolerable feelings
of smallness and helplessness, the child grows up with a fantasy that it
is bad to have needs, and will therefore project "needy” selves onto
others. “It is you that is the needy one, the disgusting one, not me!”
Omnipotence is the flip side of dependency. The omnipotent ones are those
who never need anything, want anything, because they have it all. “I don’t
need you, I don’t need your advice, and I don’t need this treatment.”
Attachment vs. Detachment
Attachment theory is based on the work of John Bowlby (1982), one of
the first to recognize the importance of early attachment ties to maternal
caretakers. He observes that when children are raised in abusive or
deprived environments, severe disruptions with bonding occur. The loss of
the object is accompanied by the infant’s increasing signs of
helplessness, hopelessness, and despair. When this occurs the infant goes
into detachment mode or pathological mourning. Apathy, lethargy and
listlessness become the replacement for affective experience (anger, rage,
envy, betrayal, and abandonment). Detachment is not to be confused with
denial and withdrawal. Bowlby stresses that when one withdraws, one still
maintains a certain libidinal tie to the object, however when one
detaches, one goes into a state of despondency. Children who are left
alone or are neglected over long periods of time, enter into a phase of
despair.
These concepts are essential to support the arguments in this paper,
especially when discussing people capable of committing acts of mass
destruction. There is a direct correlation between detachment and those
who can commit mass acts of murder.
Group Psychology/Leaders and Myths
Leaders who concretize and give meaning to the groups’ ideologies form
a powerful and intimate connection with the group’s shared myths and
delusional fantasies. Primitive aspects in groups demonstrate how
individuals form intense attachments or identifications with leaders.
Groups often form a “trance” or an intense identification with a
charismatic leader, who best offers the promise to: (1) play out the
group’s mythological fantasies, and (2) play out the group’s aggression.
Aggression is addictive, becomes exciting, people get hooked (Gay, 1986).
Aggression and cruelty reinforces the libidinal ties in groups, as long as
there are outsiders into which to project and blame (enemies/scapegoats).
When one is vulnerable, one is more inclined to identify, fuse with, or
act in complicity with any leader who offers any semblance of bonding (Lachkar,
1993).
Let us review briefly Freud and Bion’s concepts of group dynamics.
According to Freud (1955), group formation involves a process whereby each
individual in the group surrenders his own ego-ideal and, through
idealization, gives it over to the group leader. similar to an hypnotic
trance. Bion (1959) added another dimension to group process, projective
identification. Expanding Freud’s concept of the ego ideal, he realized
that tensions evolve as the group assigns itself certain group fantasies.
The group fragments, divides into subgroups, pairs-off, or acts overly
dependent in order to evacuate painful anxieties (relinquishing all
individual thinking to the collective group self).
Work Group and Basic Assumption Group
In his seminal work, Bion (1959) highlights two kinds of groups: (1)
The work group is a rational-thinking group; members are task/reality
oriented, and its primary concern is the achievement of goals; and (2) the
basic assumption group is the regressed group whose members function on
the basis of blame/shame, fight/flight, and parasitic bonds. Work group
members are acknowledged for their creativity, individuality, and rely
more on thinking than dogma or group ideology. In the basic assumption
group, the inclination is toward irrational, non-thinking process, whose
sole purpose is “emotional” survival. Each basic assumption group
qualifies a different leader. The pairing “blame/shame” group calls for a
savior, messiah like Gandhi. The “fight-flight” group seeks a battle
leader like Saddam Hussein. The dependent parasitic group, the most
regressed, chooses the most malignant or pathological leader like Hitler
or Milosevic.
Identification with Leaders
Often these are charismatic leaders, who are paranoid, and/or
schizophrenic, and pathologically disturbed. Milosevic, for example, is a
pathological narcissist with antisocial features, a fascist, and a
psychopath (Doder, 1999). Leaders who play-out these myths, express the
group’s dysfunctionality, and form a most powerful and intimate connection
with the group. Just as individuals can identify with an abusive mate, so
can individuals in groups identify with a destructive/sadistic leader. The
leader knows how to play on the group’s omnipresent fear of imminent
danger (real or imagined) from outside forces. In regressive dependency
groups, blame, attack, retaliation, getting back at any cost are dominant
features. Themes such as “Drive the Jews into the Sea,” “Return to the
Land of Milk and Honey,” “Land for Peace,” “Save Serbia,” are too familiar
themes. When tensions surge, members resort to shame/blame, fight/flight,
and scapegoating. The group searches for an enemy for the blame and enemy
and a leader/messiah who will save the group from calamity.
Leaders who are most likely to survive are the ones who best perpetuate
the group’s ideologies, mythologies, and collective group fantasies.
Child Rearing Practices and Treatment of Women in the Balkans
There is a direct correlation between harsh child rearing practices,
low self-esteem, violence, cruelty and murder (deMause, 2000). Life in
Serbia, and the Balkans in general, is filled with oppression; violence
and beatings are familiar themes in countries that do not stress the
importance of child development. Alenka Puhar’s (1993, 1994) chilling
account of child rearing includes swaddling, severe neglect, beating,
burning, and sexual violations of children, as well as torturous
ritualistic procedures to ward off evil spirits. She recounts endless
stories of mothers awaking their children in the middle of the night
beating and screaming at them, making them promise to obey: “We will never
again do what we did.” Unless the promise is given, the beating continues.
Children grow up to fear even more than war, nocturnal apparitions and
ubiquitous evil spirits lurking in the shadows, appearing anytime to haunt
them. When children are raised in such horrific, deprived conditions, and
where mothers are tortured and abused, they become a product of “poison
containers” or “toxic breasts” (deMause, 1974).
Women are subordinate to men, but are raised to do men’s work.
Pregnancy is not treated as a sensitive period in women’s lives, and as a
matter of fact a pregnant woman in rural areas was expected to excuse
herself from work, go to the barn to deliver the baby, and return to work
in the fields. Women are not allowed to display any affection to their
husbands, or to cuddle or breast feed their infants in front of men. In
marital relations, sex is rough, brutal, and often at the sadistic demands
of the husband. Even worse, women are expected to bear this extreme
oppression, humiliation and violence in silence.
One might conclude that violence directed toward women is rooted in
extreme envy, enacted by adult men deprived of maternal affection, fueling
sadistic ties with victimized women.
The Couple
Slobodan Milosevic
Slobodan (Slobo) Milosevic, President of Serbia (and Yugoslavia), is a
ruthless tyrannical leader intoxicated with power, often known as the
butcher of the Balkans (Doder, 1999), a man brutally invested in killing
and mass destruction. He is an ultra-nationalist and former communist and
the first head of state to be indicted by the United Nations war crimes
tribunal in the Hague on charges of masterminding the mass killings and
deportations of ethnic Albanians in the separatist province of Kosovo. A
pathological liar, one who never keeps his promises, he will do anything
to maintain power. Even after suffering defeat, Milosevic still remains in
power as another Saddam Hussein or Moammar Qaddafi (Doder, 1999). Even the
opposition party, the Serbian Renewal Movement, is “paralyzed by fear,
despair and a feeling of helplessness” (New York Times, 2000). How can a
man commit such heinous crimes and horrific acts of terror against his
fellow men and yet still portray an image of a benevolent father figure?
Since very little is known or written about Milosevic, we can only
speculate on the unconscious forces that compel him to commit such
atrocities.
Slobo was born the son of an Orthodox priest, not an advantage in
atheistic communist Yugoslavia. As a youth, we were described as a moody
child, a recluse, a loner, and he displayed depressive qualities in
response to an intense, lonely childhood. In 1962, while he was in
college, his father committed suicide, as did his uncle some years later.
We can only speculate that the remainder of his life was filled with much
anger and rage, which invariably led to an avoidance of feelings and a
splitting-off of powerful emotions. His mother was also similarly steeped
in lifelong trauma and tragedy. Slobo married Mirjana Miletic, a bright
woman and later a professor of sociology at the University of Belgrade,
whose life was equally traumatic (see below). The young Milosevic became a
professional communist functionary and steadily advanced in the ranks.
His big break came in 1987, when he went to Kosovo, an autonomous
district of Yugoslavia, but an area sacred to all Serbs as their symbolic
motherland because it was the site of their greatest defeat in a battle
with the Turkish conquerors in the fourteenth century. Paradoxically,
Kosovo by the end of the twentieth century was inhabited largely by ethnic
Albanian Kosovars. The long-term Yugoslav dictator Tito played off the
many nationalities of his country against each other, and the Albanians in
Kosovo had almost unlimited autonomy, discriminating against the minority
ethnic Serbs. On April 24, 1987, Milosevic faced a crowd of angry, abused
Serbs in a suburb of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Standing on a
balcony, he declared dramatically, “No one will ever dare to beat you
again!” The crowd responded ecstatically, “Slobo, Slobo!” and in a fervor
of nationalistic pride one could hear echoes, “Serbia at any cost!” Serb
victimization was so deeply embedded in Serb nationalism that any reminder
stirred up enormous emotions. The impact was mesmerizing. Suddenly,
Milosevic became the provider, the longed for “caretaker” for starving,
deprived Serb “babies.”
Thus, the depressed, powerless, and helpless Slobodan became a powerful
father icon, the omnipotent, all-encompassing father under the guise of
“the caretaker.” One might interpret that he learned to become his own
protective father, by learning how to manipulate people, becoming the
savior for the victimized Serbs. By relinquishing his own victimized self
into the Serbs, he projected and gave up the most vulnerable part of
himself: “I’m no longer the needy little depressed boy; I am all
powerful!” Power then became the antigen against depression: “Never again
will I feel dead. Now I am alive and rejoined with my family of Serbs!”
Slobodan learned well the powerful forces behind the group’s
vulnerabilities, and discovered how to play out the unconscious fantasies
of the group’s mythology.
Mirjana Milosevic
As an infant, Mira’s mother, Vera Miletic, a member of Tito’s partisan
resistance during the war, was captured and tortured by the Gestapo. Upon
her release, Vera was suspected of being a traitor because under
interrogation and torture she was said to have divulged the names of her
comrades. Shortly thereafter, Vera was killed by her fellow partisans.
Nonetheless, Mira held an idealistic image of her mother as a heroic
visionary, and became a ruthless devotee of communism. After the death of
her mother, Mira’s father, like Slobodan’s father, abandoned her and
formed a new family of his own. Being rejected by her father caused her to
cling even more fiercely to the memory of her late mother, who she
believed was a victim of the party to which she was forever devoted. Mira
then stayed with her grandparents, where she spent most of her time being
a caretaker to them (Silber, 1999).
Aside from teaching and being Slobodan’s supportive and devoted
political partner, Mira spent most of her life preoccupied with trying to
clear her mother’s name. One would wonder why a woman in the Balkans could
take on such a strong role. One explanation might be that women in Serbia
had to do men’s work. Homemaking and domesticity were not only considered
fruitless and useless tasks for women, but ridiculous ones as well (Puhar,
1993, 1994). For Mira, identifying with a male figure served as a mask to
disguise her hatred of men. Having been betrayed by a father who abandoned
her, her regression to her mother’s icon triggered paranoid delusions.
Mrs. Milosevic fits the model of a paranoid borderline personality, one
who is not heavily grounded, but one who magnificently enacts a “false
self” (the self that belies the “true self”) and will do anything to get
back at the father. Through this “false self” she insidiously uses her
husband as an instrument to play out her most virile aggressive fantasies.
Caretaker Roles and Folie a Deux
In their delusional system, or in their narcissistic/borderline dance,
Slobo and Mira Milosevic play into each other’s conscious and unconscious
repressed fantasies as they assign themselves to “caretaker roles” and
embark upon ways to capitalize on their own victimized selves. Both were
products of unhappy families and brutal childrearing, and were depressed,
lonely children. They created their own singular world. Slobo’s grandiose
narcissistic self-parading as the newly found messianic leader feeds into
Mira’s vengeful plight. In return, her rage feeds into his national and
political self-serving interests. Many Serbs felt that it was Mira,
inflamed by her own bitterness and revengeful self, who pushed Slobo
towards the pinnacle of power. Those who knew Mira personally will suggest
that she would drive her husband using whatever malignant and absolute
influence over him to take the entire country over the cliff (much akin to
the borderline personality who will do anything to get back or get even).
This poses the classic example of groups who readily identify with
group leaders who have had disjointed traumatic childhood.
There is a folie a deux between the Serb couple, but there is also a folie
a deux between the individual and his or her culture. For Slobo, it is the
shame of a deprived and depressive childhood, reinforced by a culture that
discourages maternal affection. For Mira, it is the bitterness from early
maternal deprivation and loss, reinforced by a society that ignores
women’s vulnerabilities and dependency needs, and stresses predominant
“male” traits. Mira crusaded in support of her husband’s relentless quest
for power, fueling his split-off deprived and dependent self. In return,
Slobo’s grandiose self and ruthless aggression ignited her victimized and
retaliatory self.
Fantasy Analysis
Now for the imagination. What follows is a “fantasy” case. What would
happen if Mr. and Mrs. Milosevic came for conjoint therapy? In this
“session” the therapist is very confrontational, but again, it is not a
display of the therapist’s technique because in reality no therapist would
respond in the way that is presented. The main point is to bring life to
the “folie a deux,” as the drama of the private madness unfolds.
Therapist: Tell me what brings you here?
Mrs. M: We feel depressed. Our people are turning against us.
Mr. M: Not only that we feel betrayed, we are angry. After all we did
for our people, they are beginning to doubt our integrity.
Th: What did you do for you people?
Mrs. M: What did we do? We protected them, we provided for them we gave
them everything.
Mr. M: When I heard about all the wrongdoings to the Serbs by the
Kosovars, I was stunned. I stood out on my porch facing a crowd Serbs and
declared. “No, one will ever dare to beat you again!” At that moment I
felt I was master. The crown began to cheer and roar.
Th: You became the fantasized protective daddy for them, the messianic
leader / savior?
Mr. M: What do you mean fantasized? I am the protective leader!
Mrs. M: He’s right, the crowd hailed. “Slobo, Slobo!” with a fervor of
intense nationalistic pride.
Mr. M: We could hear the echoes, Serbia, Serbia at any cost! The impact
was mesmerizing.
Th: Isn’t that the same thing that occurred in Egypt when Nasser
declared all the Jews should be driven into the Red Sea? Suddenly, didn’t
he become a nationalistic hero?
Mr. M: Not at all. You don’t understand. This is unique to us.
Th: Sounds like mass hysteria to me, mania, the group bonding to ward
off feelings of dependency and helplessness.
Mrs. M: What do you mean mania? Even the most conservative statesmen
become entranced to the awe of my husband.
Th: But in all due respect to you, Mrs. M., your husband is also known
to be a pathological liar, a man who commits atrocities, one who never
keeps promises or will do anything to maintain power.
Mrs. M: My husband is a very charming honorable man. He mesmerizes even
American congressmen. Whoever meets my husband and looks him in the eye
becomes totally smitten.
Th: But your husband has slaughtered thousands of Kosovars, and
hundreds of thousands were expelled or fled Kosovo.
Mr. M: This doesn’t matter, many returned after the peacekeeping forces
arrived.
Th: So you are saying your husband has a way of manipulating and
seducing people by projecting into them some vulnerable part of himself,
which you then confuse with honesty and integrity?
Mrs. M: How dare you suggest my husband is a manipulator?
Th: Your husband is a very clever man, he knows how to hook into the
unconscious collective group fantasies or group myths of the people!
Mrs. M: You don’t know what you’re talking about. They are not
fantasies. They are realities. After losing thirteen wars, his approval
ratings soared.
Th: No wonder you feel confused and betrayed.
Mr. M: It doesn’t matter, I will do anything to help my country regain
power. I’m proud to protect the Serbs.
Th: Even it means a continuation of mass murders?
Mrs. M: How dare you?
Th: To meet these unconscious fantasies, the two of you have joined in
a collusive bond, a folie a deux, hand in hand marching to the tune of
your own private madness.
Mr. M: I don’t know why I sit here and listen to your insults.
Th: I think this madness is linked to your vulnerability, and the need
to ward off feelings of helplessness you both experienced in your
childhood. Now you think you are protecting the Serbs, as you wish you had
been protected. Now the Kosovars are the victims, the dirty squirmy
people, and you now all big and omnipotent.
Mrs. M: Madness? It is not madness I equate with helplessness. I have
had my share of feeling helpless. My mother died for nationalistic causes.
I had to care for my grandparents. I never had a childhood. I was always
the caretaker, but without your “madness” I feel dead inside.
Mr. M: I agree. We need the excitement. It is this excitement that
keeps us alive.
Th: So there is some kind of erotic excitement in being the
all-powerful leader.
Mrs. M: (Sitting erect and suddenly coming to life). Yes, that’s right!
That’s right! That’s what we do, so we don’t feel dead inside. Now we know
we are alive!
Th: So you are aroused by your husband’s aggression. Is this why you go
along with his destructive acts?
Mrs. M: (Self-righteously). What you call aggression, I call courage.
Yes, it does excite me. I encouraged my husband to do things, to be an
architect, to go into politics. But I’m the one who really should be in
politics.
Th: So you live through him?
Mrs. M: I don’t live through him. I am him. We are one.
Th: Let me conclude today’s session. You both share a delusional system
akin to Siamese twins tied at the borders of victimization and denial. You
are inseparable, each one living emotionally inside the psychic space of
the other, without any ego boundaries. You are both depressed, have had
morbid childhood’s, many losses. Both have assigned yourselves to
caretaker roles, not having “good enough” parenting, you have become your
own “good” parents. You, Mr. Milosevic, have had a later loss of your
parents. Mrs. Milosevic, you have suffered an earlier loss, and avenge the
death of your mother through your husband’s aggression. But both of you
have capitalized on your own victimized childhood. You both were lonely
children, products of unhappy families, and have created your own singular
world. In order to offset the emptiness in your lives, it is better to
kill, mutilate, slaughter, and destroy.
Final Analysis
This study, featuring psychoanalytic and psychohistorical perspectives,
sought to elucidate the recent dramatic and traumatic events in the
Balkans through an examination of the personalities of the Serb first
couple, the interaction between them, and the dynamics of the relationship
between the Serb leader and Serb masses, against the background of their
child rearing practices and treatment of women. We now come to our final
analysis. After discussing theorists, psychodynamics, culture, and our
Balkan couple, where does this all lead? The answer is as simple as it is
complex.
Does Klein’s distinction between the “good breast” and the “bad breast”
throw light on the pernicious effects of Balkan child rearing practices?
Do Bion’s and Freud’s ideas about group psychology contribute to the
understanding of this conflict? Do Fairbairn’s ideas further our knowledge
why people in groups will remain forever faithful to painful bad internal
introjects? Can we attribute poor child rearing practices to leaders who
play out their own abusive childhoods? Does my formulation of the
narcissistic/borderline couple help to understand the interaction between
the Serb couple? The answer to all these questions is in the affirmative,
as demonstrated in this analysis.
The skeptic might ask who we are to decide what an abusive childhood is
in another culture. In my analysis, it seems reasonable to predict that
children who are forced to relinquish their childhood at a young age,
before the ego has a chance to maturate, enact roles their immature
psyches are not prepared for. These children remain forever
developmentally stuck. These are the “little adults,” those who are
coerced to perform adult tasks much too early and much too soon, as in the
case of our infamous couple, who assigned themselves to caretaker roles.
Without having any understanding of the psychodynamic process, somehow in
their folie a deux, they instinctively understand how to play-out these
shared collective fantasies.
In the Balkans, as in other repressed societies, lies the yearning for
deprived groups to identify with aggressive/perilous leaders who for a
while play act the role of an omnipotent, grandiose, fantasized
daddy/leader promising hope and security. The people of Serbia who have
been massively abused, are inclined to choose a phallic leader like
Milosevic, whose grandiose delusions around revenge resonate with many of
the group’s shared collective rage and revengeful fantasies. In politics,
there is a dialectic between desire and aggression, similar to what
transpires in marital love bonds. When Milosevic offers promises of hope
or fulfillment of unconscious repressed needs, his followers become
intoxicated by his power. If he fails, these same followers would then
seek to “kill the patriarch.” Moreover, Milosevic brilliantly portrays the
role as caretaker, that this fantasy role intoxicates the Serbs. This
dovetails with the fascination between leaders and group members, a man
who uses his power to mesmerize an entire nation into submission. By
forming an over-identification with his wife’s plight, Milosevic geared
for the relentless drive to find revenge at any cost, he becomes his
wife’s rescuer and longed for provider. In the dance of the couple, he
extracts a sense of omnipotence and power, and becomes a national hero, as
he reconciles his vulnerable self under the pinafore of his wife’s
relentless rage, the desire to revenge those who killed her mother. As the
drama unfolds, he no longer feels vulnerable. Omnipotence becomes the
replacement for weakness and a major defensive operation, as he enacts the
role of savior/messianic leader for the Serbs.
Thus, as the curtain closes on the Balkan drama, another drama will
begin: different players, different time and space, but the same script
repeating itself again and again. Perhaps our blend of psychohistory and
psychoanalysis can offer further insights for other conflicts, and will
contribute to a new resolution to this age-old tragic saga.
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Following a brief discussion of major theoreticians and primitive
defenses and psychodynamics, I will describe child rearing practices and
treatment of women in Serbia, provide biographical data on our couple, and
analyze their relationship. At the end, I enacted a dramatization, a
“Fantasy Analysis” of what would occur if the Milosevic couple came in for
conjoint treatment. It offers a mock session which is not an example of
the therapist’s technique, reverie, or empathy. Its relevance is of a
psychohistorical nature, rather than a psychotherapeutic one. |
