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WHO ARE THE EX-PATS?
One can roughly differentiate between three subgroups of expatriates in Eastern Europe. The first subgroup consists of ambitious young people working for multinationals and coming primarily in order to have a chance of climbing the corporate ladder faster. They tend to stay away from psychotherapy unless their spouse drags them along and/or comes her/himself The second and smallest group is composed of people who have felt like failures back home and are seeing the area as a backward one where they may have a chance of making it in a hopefully less demanding environment. Then there are the ones who come primarily because it seems like a new frontier. Working for the most part with this last (primarily American) group in East Central Europe over a number of years, some recurring common themes emerged. Although these themes occurred there, too, I had come across them less frequently among the indigenous settled population I had been working with in the United States. The most important themes were, in the order of their frequency:
THE MULTIPLY TRAUMATIZED
In the following, I shall concentrate on the third issue,
that of victimization, keeping in mind that in a toned-down way victim-perpetrator
relationships are very common in most human societies (Sichrovsky &Scheer,
1991).
Let me start with a description of what victimization
is all about. According to Ochberg (1988, p. 11) in the process the victim
is deliberately and unjustly harmed and/or coerced by another human being.
As a result, the victim feels humiliated, helpless, powerless, a loser.
Other usual reactions on the part of the victim are feeling diminished,
pushed down in a hierarchy of dominance, exploited, and invaded. I would
add that, interestingly, these terms describe the act of victimization
as much as they describe the feelings within the victim. In addition, a
process also sets in to bring about changes designed to reduce the likelihood
of the unbearable pain of the trauma being re-experienced. An example of
this is Robert Prince's (1985) seven strategies for coping with the trauma
of the Holocaust. Clinically, I found that in the 10 years I paid attention
to this, his formulation has been very useful in helping me understand
the coping mechanisms of the multiply traumatized. In his study of the
children of survivors of the Holocaust Prince tried to make sense of the
data by suggesting the following strategies for coping with the trauma:
(1) A schizoid resolution in which they close themselves
off from the world;
(2) a manipulative resolution in which
they seek security by exploiting the environment;
(3) a depressed resolution in which they
abandon themselves to suffering and feelings of helplessness;
(4) a paranoid resolution in which they
withhold trust and allegiance to anybody and anything, especially ideologies;
(5) a militaristic resolution in which
one avoids becoming the victim again by being the victimizer instead (e.g.
Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia);
(6) a heroic resolution in which they actively
engage in behaviors which supports and nourishes people's ability to triumph
over evil & injustice;
(7) a contemplative resolution in which
they try to understand the past, and its impact on their present reality.
All of these, though in very different kinds of ways, are designed to ward off the unbearable pain of the trauma. Whereas in the first five of these resolutions what Mack (1990) calls the "egoism of victimization" is operating, with an inability to empathize with other victims, this is not the case with the last two. The assumption is that generally people use most strategies but that one or two strategies tend to predominate in a particular individual and at a particular time. As mentioned before, my assumption is that people with a history of victimization who come to countries which only recently suffered under oppressive regimes tend to be self-selected from among the ones whose predominant strategy is the "heroic resolution". The affinity they feel and act upon seems to be a generic one. They seem to feel drawn to groups of people who were or are being oppressed, whether the oppression be political, as in dictatorships, or economic, as with the "underclass" in developed countries or with the vast population of the abjectly poor in underdeveloped and in developing nations.
What conditions need to be met for someone to qualify for engaging in the "heroic resolution" of trauma?
1. A history of severe and protracted trauma, usually
in childhood.
2. Instead of the "egoism of the victim", strong empathy
with the underdog with a sense of mission directed at helping victims.
3. This empathy is being actively pursued with
4. using rage as "righteous anger" on behalf of other
victims.
5. A very well-developed sense of justice focusing on
inequities and injustices coming about as a result of differences in power.
6. While often having difficulties in self-assertion
on their own behalf, fluctuating between being non-assertive to being overly
assertive, such difficulties are usually absent when advocating for other
victims.
PARALLELS BETWEEN COMMUNIST SOCIETIES AND ABUSIVE FAMILIES
1. Denial and projection were prevalent mechanisms used
in Communist ideology (Erös,1993). For instance, societal problems
were usually not thought of as stemming from forces or factors inherent
in the organic fabric of society, but to 'remnants of the class enemy'
and/or foreign agents'. This makes it more difficult for people and groups
to assume responsibility for their own behavior, just like in the abusing
family.
2. The above is closely related to the issue of victimhood
(including competition over who is the most victimized) (Mack, 1990; Pataki,
1992). Just like with sexual and with violent abuse, victimizers
often also saw themselves as victims.
3. As communist ideology was, like all authoritarian
ideologies, based primarily on an unconscious need for symbiosis (Marlin,
1994 ), and the mindset was "we against them", the stage was set for new
content to fit into the same mold, thus making it easy for any kind of
scapegoating to occur once the going got tough. Analogy: a victim seeking
outside help was seen as a traitor in Communist societies just like in
abusive families.
4. To function in the system, a person had to sacrifice
vital areas of autonomy (Marlin, 1994); furthermore, attempts to separate
from the state or even the group were not only discouraged but were regarded
as amounting to attacks and betrayal. Analogy: enmeshment in abusing families.
5. The decline and fall of communism brought about an
identity crisis in many individuals as with the old regime teetering on
the edge of collapse and then collapsing; a positive sense of identity
and healthy self-esteem were often lacking (Erös, 1993, Csepeli, 1988);
together with this, there was a distinct crisis of self-esteem (Nuttin,
1987; Pataiki1992). Analogy: significant problems with low self-esteem
and with a well-developed identity in embers of the abusing family with
leaving home often resulting in a severe crisis.
6. There was an unbridgeable gap between the ones in
power and the rest of the population (Tall, 1996). Just as in familial
sexual or violent abuse, the citizens' rights/boundaries
were ill-defined and could be violated by the powerful at will.
THE CENTRAL HYPOTHESIS
A major function of the 'heroic resolution' is assumed to be to bind the rage and/or the survivor or other significant guilt caused by the series of traumata the people have suffered. The energy invested in the 'heroic resolution' and the degree of its cathexis is thought to be directly proportional to the extent
SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES OF PEOPLE ENGAGED IN THE HEROIC
RESOLUTION IN DEALING WITH VICTIMS OF TRAUMATA INFLICTED BY PERPETRATORS
The Ossie-Wessie Dynamic
A frequently occurring difficulty of the helper coming from the outside could be labelled the Ossie-Wessie dynamic (from the German West and Ost, where Ost means east). The starting point for the helpers-to-be was the "Western" view of the societies behind the Iron Curtain. In that view there has been a great deal of emphasis on oppression and victimization, with much less stress on its paternalistic social welfare aspects. Thus, the pull towards expecting citizens to be primarily victims was great, and the importance of the loss of security was not appreciated. As in their latter years, the milder reform-Communist regimes, such as that of Hungary from the mid-sixties onwards, could be regarded as relatively benign and paternalistic dictatorships, the analogy to the abusive family does not hold up too well for them. The analogy that does hold up better would be with an autocratic-paternalistic family in which protection and security is offered in exchange for conformity and acquiescence. Thus, the helpers' need to rescue their charges from the internalized oppressor may be frustrated by the helpees' passivity and nostalgia for the protectedness of the "good old days". I would hypothesize that frustration over this was a significant ingredient in bringing people to therapy. Conversely, being able to let go of the need to rescue the reluctant may characterize the individuals who do not seek therapy among the ones who may have been significantly motivated by the heroic resolution. This applies to the following paragraphs as well. I would like to repeat my assumption that unresolved trauma from a personal source (like sexual or physical abuse) predisposes that person to a strategy of mastering it, one of which is the heroic resolution. The more stuck the person is, the harder it may be to deviate from it, potentially resulting in stuckness in the here-and-now, in the present instance in the effort to rescue the Ossie victim.
Egoism of victimization versus the felt altruism of the helper
In formerly Eastern Bloc countries the incidence of felt victimhood is very high; although there are no solid data on this, most colleagues in the area would agree with me that a great many people in the region regard themselves as victims.
Mack (1990) said it very succinctly (p. 125): "The egoism of victimization is the incapacity of an ethno-national group, as a result of its own historical traumas, to empathize with the suffering of another group. It is analogous to the narcissism or self-centeredness of some individuals who see themselves as having been so hurt or deprived in the past that they can attend only to their own needs, feeling little or no empathy for the hurt they inflict upon others." It is my contention that this description applies both on a societal level in the region, and to the majority of individuals at least to the extent of a lessened capacity for empathy. It follows from this that the counter-transferential pull on helpers to vacillate between a need to rescue and rage over the population to be helped being stuck in its hopelessness and helplessness is great. This, in turn, further strengthens the already pre-existent guilt over being the better-off outsider.
Projective identification in the process between Ossie and Wessie
If, as it is our contention, many an expat comes here as a helper motivated by Prince's "heroic resolution" (especially those of them in whom something akin to survivor guilt is operating), they would be very much prone to be recruited into feeling this kind of guilt. The likely result is some helping behavior which, however, is experienced by the expat-helper as having been extracted rather than freely given, and by the receiver as having been given reluctantly and from a position of superiority, rather than willingly and happily in the context of equality and positive regard. This dynamic is similar to that of the neglectful parent spoiling the undeserving child with material presents and leaving both parties dissatisfied in the end. The feelings and behaviors are mutually reinforcing and the dynamic is akin to the process of projective identification. All this is closely related to the hot current Eastern European issue of whether the relationship of "The West" to the former Soviet Bloc is primarily one of colonization or of partnership (Hadas and Vörös, 1996).
The role of undoing and of repetition compulsion
Psychological hazards for the helpers are mainly associated with undoing and with repetition compulsion. They sought out a setting in which oppression, if only in the past, was a significant ingredient, but with the demise of the autocratic regime the likelihood of being a change agent is felt to be high. The repetition compulsion aspect is in the setting they chose, and the undoing in their seeing themselves as change agents in a fluid situation, increasing their chance of making an impact that may make a difference. However, this can result in significant blows to their self-esteem in their encounters with recalcitrant often passive-aggressive and 'ungrateful' indigenous helpees.
Deniability of abuse the helpers suffer in the here-and-now
We saw before that by the very act of coming as change agents to a formerly highly autocratic society in which there used to be little regard for human rights the helpers exposed themselves to abuse in the here-and-now. While the expats in question are no longer in the role of the powerless child vis-a-vis the powerful adult, the abuse is usually denied and occurs in a way that is deniable. This denial is another aspect which relates directly to the original abuse. One could argue that communist societies were particularly adept at double-talk or newspeak designed to deny abuse, and both abuse and its denial still tend to be rampant. To mention a frequently-occurring example, there may be a great many low-key disparaging remarks by 'natives' in the workplace about the helper which might significantly undermine his/her credibility. The situation is further complicated by the language barrier, where the expat may be wondering: "what are they saying about me?" True, it is now possible to confront the issue unlike once-upon-a-time, but it requires a lot of energy and the danger of being stonewalled by denial, both by the "putative perpetrator" and by others, is very much there just like in the original abuse. Further, just like in the original abuse not only the perpetrator engaged in denial, but both family and society-at-large aided and abetted in the process, this kind of "mini-abuse" is almost universally denied in the host-society.
Double-bind messages
Another recurrent hazard is the internal contradiction between the content of messages as against the way they are delivered, the prototypical one being that of somebody being loudly berated in public for being intolerant. An example is an autocratic organization advising another, and, of course, in an autocratic way, on how to 'democratize'. In this situation denial is also likely to be prevalent within the autocratic organization and rank-and-file helpers are bound to identify with helpees and consequently feel abused vicariously. In addition, they may feel abused themselves by the autocratic practices, and, to make matters worse, are likely to feel badly about being expected to participate not only as victims but also as victimizers. This dual role of both victim and perpetrator is very familiar to people who have lived in dictatorships where both the Nazis and the Communists quite consciously tried to involve as many people as at all possible as accomplices. In Nazi concentration camps the prototypical victim/ victimizer was the Kapo (camp police recruited from inmates), whose cruelties to fellow-inmates are well-documented.
INTRODUCTION TO THE CASE STUDIES
In the following, we shall deal some more with the intricate interconnexions between attempts of trauma survivors to overcome their trauma by means of the "heroic resolution" on the one hand, and problems prevalent in societies which until recently suffered under oppression on the other hand. Starting with case presentations we will establish commonalities and then come to conclusions. I might add that I do not claim that "heroic resolution" is the only factor accounting for the choice of coming to Eastern Europe, only that it consistently emerged as a significant determinant. Also, as case histories, these are retrospective accounts and there is no way of knowing whether some of the data arc screen memories or the like. Although the evidence on the intergenerational transmission of the Holocaust is somewhat contradictory (Summerfield, 1996), 1 am here assuming that it is operating (Bar-On, 1995, Breiner, 1996, Danieli, 1988, Stevenson, 1996, Vogel, 1994, Yehuda et al., 1998); just like in childhood sexual abuse (Maltas & Shay, 1995) there also seems to be transmission to the partner.
THE CASES
Case 1: Joan. A thirty-year-old single woman, she was
referred for severe panic attacks culminating in not being able to leave
her room. She had been in Hungary for about five months, living in a major
provincial city, employed by an international foundation. In addition to
the anxiety attacks, she reported real-seeming daydreams of lethal violence
unleashed at her, the most frequent one being the subjective experience
of the impact of a car hitting her while she was, in reality, crossing
a street unobstructedly. She also reported terrifying nightmares involving
something penetrating her mouth, flashes of intense rage, and a disturbing
lack of childhood memories. On the one hand, she related in an open and
trusting manner trying not to hold back, yet she physically kept her distance,
her body was always well-covered, and her body posture was closed off in
relation to the environment.
She was one of four children, the second-eldest, and
was born in the United States of immigrant parents. Both her parents came
to the States as children, her mother of Romanian-Jewish extraction, her
father Bulgarian-born Eastern Orthodox, while the household was non-religious.
All her mother's cousins and extended family perished in the Holocaust.
She was physically abused by her mother and was frequently severely beaten
by her for transgressions she did not commit. Her father was a more withdrawn
figure who did not harm her yet she could not count on his support. He
is seen by her as a fellow-victim of the abusive mother but he abandoned
them when she was in her teens. She was also pretty sure she was sexually
abused by at least one male family member, although she has no recollection
and no idea as to who it might have been. She had anorexia nervosa between
the ages of 17-20, but it stopped when she left home. Her twin fears were
of becoming ineffectual like her father or abusive like her mother. In
the agency in which she worked she did environmental work across borders
and involving, among other things, collaboration between Romanians and
Bulgarians, two nations with historical enmity towards one another. In
her work, she dealt with the legacy of environmental abuse perpetrated
by the communist regimes and built bridges between her father's and her
mother's fellow-nationals. She was carrying her mother's rage doubly: she
has taken on her mother's rage about the Holocaust, and more rage has been
generated in her by the abuses heaped upon her, both physical and sexual.
Her work was one of bridge-building and peacemaking, avoiding the role
of either perpetrator or victim for herself or for the ones she was working
with and for. However, her immediate superior was a very macho man, in
relation to whom she started feeling like a victim once again, facing her
with the choice of either becoming a victim by submitting, or a perpetrator
by letting out her rage. In addition, her work task became overwhelming,
and her bridging work seemed unsuccessful: this was when her anxiety, panic
and other symptoms became incapacitating. As she improved in therapy, she
developed a relationship with, and later married a man who was a minority
Romanian from Bucovina, Ukraine: Romanian, like perpetrator mother, but
also a member of a victimized minority group, and one who has successfully
integrated his background. In other words, he appeared to be someone who
had more or less achieved what she has been working towards. One may well
say here that her efforts were successful at the time of the last contact:
she took her Romanian-Ukrainian boyfriend with her to the US as her bridegroom.
Her symptoms had emerged at the time when she was faced with the insoluble
task of becoming either victim or victimizer and massive dissociation was
the result. At its height, a consequence of her agoraphobia was that she
was avoiding her workplace in which she could have become either the victim
or the perpetrator. Having found not only support but also a role model
in her boy friend, she was able to revert to her successful "heroic resolution".
Rescuing him to the safety of the US, a rescue the like of which 50-odd
years before could have saved lives in her mother's family, was part of
this reversion. In addition, a cooperative publication she had edited,
with contributors from several countries in the region, many with long-standing
historical enmities towards one another, was living and tangible proof
that her efforts at peacemaking were successful.
With her, the cathexis of the HR was very great: there
was inter-generational survivor guilt transmitted to her by her mother,
yet generalized rage and rage directed specifically at her mother was also
intense. The rage felt at her mother was also particularly guilt-producing
as, at least intellectually, she was very much aware of her mothers' victim-status.
There was also the categorical imperative of not becoming abusive like
her mother, whatever the circumstances. Her successfulness probably had
a lot to do with how well the HR worked for her at the time she left therapy
and the country.
Case 2: John, a sixty-one-year-old married man was referred for being apathetic and for having difficulties with his wife. He related well and seemed quite open verbally, but his posture seemed awkward at times and his movements were well-controlled, not free-flowing. The second of two children in a family of well-to-do burghers, his mother came from the Hungarian landed gentry, while the father was a Czech Jew. They lived in Bohemia until 1938 and came to Hungary prior to the Nazi occupation of Bohemia. He was close to his rather demanding mother yet distant from his father and had a rather sheltered childhood. As a result of a serious childhood illness he was bedridden for a few months at the age of 9 and until the age of 14 was not allowed to participate in gym or in sports: this had a significantly isolating effect on him and he became a book-worm. He could also recall some confusion over his identity: was he Hungarian or Czech, Catholic or Jewish? This confusion was seemingly resolved after the Nazi occupation of Hungary when in 1944 he was staying with a childless uncle and aunt on his mother's side assuming another identity: he was living under a different name and claiming Hungarian Catholic ancestry on both sides. He remembered that not very long after the end of the war, re-united with his parents, while sitting under a tree by himself he had decided that he will never again deny who he is: Hungarian and Czech, Catholic and Jew, and that they will somehow be at peace within him. His father had a brother and two sisters, one of whom perished in the Holocaust. This was an aunt John hardly knew and had no attachment to. He remembered the feeling as a child that both he and his family had escaped the War and the Holocaust unscathed and wondering if having been spared was somehow undeserved. On the one hand, he became a peacemaker with his friends and in the extended family, yet he took a (politically hazardous) delight in engaging the Communist Young Pioneers in debates until his parents found out and asked him to keep his opinions to himself. He did control himself until the uprising in 1956 in which he participated actively as a student. By the end of that year he was in the US and received a scholarship to a prestigious university to finish his studies.
After getting his Ph.D. in sociology he took an academic job at a mid-Western university, married a graduate student and had two children. After a 25-year marriage they divorced and he moved to a university on the East Coast. When a post-divorce relationship fell apart, he took early retirement and accepted an academic appointment for a year in Bohemia where he met his second wife-to-be, a Hungarian woman, and after marriage came to Hungary with her. He had arrived in East Central Europe full of high hopes for the region and for his role in the post-Communist transitional period. He had been in Hungary for a year-and-a-half when he was referred. A significant amount of discord had developed with his wife a few months after their arrival in Hungary. He also had been active at mediation between national minorities and felt very frustrated at the time he came for his first session. He had serious doubts about whether he should have returned and whether his new marriage made sense. He had some suicidal ideation, but it seemed rather abstract without any immediate suicidal danger. In psychotherapy, a central issue was his survivor guilt. Prior to coming to Eastern Europe he had fantasies about himself as the rescuer of long-downtrodden Czechs and Hungarians, and this had a significant role to play in his marital choice as well, as his wife's family had suffered a great deal under the Communist regime. When he came for the initial consultation, he had felt very much burdened by his need to rescue both society-at-large and his Hungarian wife. At the time of the last contact he was a consultant to an international agency on matters related to mediation and the marital stress was significantly reduced. He was sucessfully engaged at the 'heroic resolution' on a more realistic level.
With John, survivor guilt seemed to be the most important ingredient in his version of the HR. He came into therapy when the HR seemed completely unsuccessful and he felt very guilty about this. A major ingredient in his successful therapy was his finding a realistic avenue for his HR.
Case 3: Inge, unmarried, 33, was self-referred for being unable to sleep and for panic attacks. The onset of the symptoms coincided with her return from her summer vacation. The younger of two children in a middle-class Lutheran family in one of the larger cities of west-central Germany, she was always a bit of a loner, anxious, inhibited. Taking her history was a bit like pulling teeth, at no time was there an easy flow. Dutifully, she was doing her best to co-operate, but she often became tongue-tied, her bodily posture was closed-off, and she was always well-covered in such a way that the outlines of her body could not be made out. She was conveying a contradictory message from the very beginning: on the one hand, a good deal of non verbal appealing for help, while on the other hand, also non-verbally, that the helper needed to stay at a considerable distance and that she had to remain in total control. Although it was apparent from the very beginning that she must have been a sexual abuse victim as a child, she did not divulge it until the fourth session. She "thought she knew" she had been sexually abused, but had no idea when and how and by whom. Her rage over having been abused didn't meet the eye. She acknowledged it intellectually, but was not in touch with it emotionally most of the time. Her sexual orientation was heterosexual, and she did have sexual dreams which tended to have a nightmarish quality. However, she hasn't had satisfying sexual relationships at all.
She had been in Jungian analysis for two years in her twenties, and she felt it was of some use. Since then, she regularly went to therapeutic retreats which helped her cope. However, she never felt that she was functioning even half-way adequately. She had a Ph.D. in literature and some training and experience in group dynamics. When she found out that a foundation was looking for somebody to teach German language and literature to adult education classes in Hungary with an emphasis on conveying democratic values, she applied and took the job about three months prior to coming for the first consultation. It transpired her work setting was reminiscent of her childhood home: in both places she felt "tied in by obligation without feeling even remotely looked after and protected". It was in the course of working with her that I formulated the connexion between what clients felt they needed for themselves and what they perceived as a need of Hungarian society-at-large: to become freed of the effects of past victimization.
However, while her work setting was preaching openness and democracy, it was, in actual fact, primarily autocratic. The teaching method advocated was teacher-centered, yet not really fostering feedback from the students. Thus, it felt like she was being re-victimized in an entirely unacknowledged, even denied way, and she was expected to be a party to it. It was like the original abuse in that she felt she was part of a pretending game in which what they were doing was supposedly for the good of all participants. To put it in a different way, it felt to her like she was abused in a very subtle way while also being co-opted into abusing the students just as subtly. In the given setting it felt like whatever she did she would not be able to help them as what was needed was exposing them to a different, corrective experience like what she had had in mind when she accepted the job. At the same time, there was also some resentment towards the students over their passivity, over their also expecting for her to do it all, so that they could just ingest the goodies she was providing. The parallel process between her behavior towards me as the "magic helper" and what she was experiencing with her students was really striking. Her central dilemma seemed to be the classical "how do I avoid becoming a victim without becoming a perpetrator"? At the end of our contact she terminated her job and felt good about it. In other words, she temporarily let go of engaging in the 'heroic resolution!, concentrating instead on disengaging from the repetition compulsion in which she felt both re-victimized and also a reluctant fellow-abuser.
With Inge, the largely hidden and ego-alien rage was the most important single ingredient of her HR. That rage was very much re-engaged in her work setting, so that her HR seemed to result in re-victimization. She was able to engage that rage to extract herself from her work setting and thus her repetition compulsion had a successful outcome: she didn’t stay in the victimizing situation.
Case 4: James, a 55-year-old never-married dry alcoholic, off alcohol for many years, referred himself for feeling intense rage and frequently occurring free floating anxiety. A highly-qualified high school English teacher he was hired with Foundation money to teach English in a small country town in Hungary. His symptoms emerged when he was asked by an official of the Foundation to keep an eye on, and be supportive with a colleague in a nearby town who "may become an alcoholic". Her felt this to be a terrible imposition. In addition, they hadn’t kept their promise as to the kinds of classes he was going to teach, he wasn't getting any help from them at A and now they expected him to be his brother's keeper. He felt enraged by all this and didn't know what to do with his rage. All this was very frightening. The third of four brothers in a small town in the Midwest, he had always felt isolated in his family. The two elder brothers were only one year apart but the younger one of them was three years older than James and the two elder ones formed a sub-unit of sorts from which he was excluded. He got little love and approval from his hypercritical mother, and whatever little he got he lost when the youngest was born when James was nine. He felt safe with his maternal grandmother who seemed to accept him unconditionally, but her approval, while it helped him feel good while he was with her, didn't help build his self-esteem as he could do no wrong by her. In other words, while her love was a significant source of comfort, her approval was worthless because of the approval-inflation: when everything is great praise becomes meaningless. He also received loving physical attention from his father, but also psychological abuse. When he soiled his pants on a long car trip as a child his enraged father would hold him over the railing of a bridge threatening to drop him while his mother looked on. Another traumatic memory was when he hurt his foot rather badly and had to be taken to the doctor. In the car he was scolded by his parents: "how could you do this to us to embarrass us?! " He remembered an occasion when he didn’t polish his shoes for a family outing and upon being left home as a punishment, he set a fire in the house which didn't do a great deal of damage but frightened him a good deal. A crucial event in his life was when as a grade school student he was repeatedly sexually abused by a teenage babysitter who was the daughter of family friends. He told his parents but they completely soft-pedalled the issue and as a result he felt abandoned and unprotected once again.
Hungary had interested him ever since high school when he got to know a fellow-student who had left Hungary in 1956, became president of the student body and was a dynamo in many ways. He came to see Hungarians as people who often managed to overcome horrendous abuse yet come out of it all healthy and strong, something he felt he needed to achieve, while helping those Hungarians who were unable to rise beyond the state of victimhood. He remained a bachelor and while he is androgynous his basic sexual orientation is heterosexual. He became a devoted high school teacher but opted for early retirement and took the offered position in Hungary. His being in Hungary pulled for the old feelings of victimhood within him.
However, Eastern Europe in general and Hungary in particular
is a region of victims and therefore behavior appropriate to "selfishness
of the victim" is the rule (Mack, 1990, Pick, 1997, see also below). Thus,
when James had to leave his apartment at short notice his colleagues not
only did not sympathize with him but intimated that this experience may
show him in a small way what life was really like around here. Again, he
not only did not receive any support for being victimized but his experience
was discounted just like in his childhood. In addition, he came to see
Hungarians not only not as the healthy and strong images the ones he knew
in the US seemed to project, but, on the contrary, people who are still
suffering the consequences of their past victimhood. Specifically, contrary
to the belief he came with, it seemed to him that their coping skills and
general level of coping were inferior to his. Upon coming to Hungary he
had felt that he could learn as much as her could teach as regards human
values, while after some time he came to feel that he had to guard who
he was. A relevant issue is that boundaries are much fuzzier in Hungary
than in the US which makes it a particularly hazardous place for people
with a history of abuse. Thus, his strong response to the employers' request
to become his "brother's keeper" becomes more understandable: impossible
demands were being made on him while he received no support or appreciation
for what he did. The Foundation was also turning out to be a 'bad mother'
to him. His task was difficult because he needed to let go of his attempts
at the 'heroic resolution' while in Eastern Europe, and furthermore his
hopes for learning something from Hungarians that would help him overcome
the effects of past victimizations came to naught. He is now learning to
find the balance to maintain his boundaries while living among his Hungarian
peers and remaining on acceptable terms with the Foundation.
His attachment to the HR worked doubly: while helping
the past victims he also expected to learn new ways of coping from many
locals he expected to be just as adept at overcoming obstacles as that
childhood idol of his. Among the four, his external situation remained
the most difficult.
BRIEF COMPARISON OF THE CASES
Firstly, victimization played a major role in their development. It was strongest with Joan who experienced it personally as both sexual and physical abuse as well as intergenerationally as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and weakest with John who experienced it only intergenerationally and more peripherally (an uncle perished and not a parent). Prince's (1985) "heroic resolution" came to predominate in all of them, with their developing strong defences against their rage. The underlying motivation differed, with John being most strongly motivated by survivor guilt, and James needing to keep his rage on the surface more than the others in order to avoid becoming re-victimized, while for Inge and Joan maintaining control over themselves and their rage was the most central issue. However, they all felt impelled to be actively helpful to others. There is a major element of undoing in all this by endeavoring to help others so that they do not become victimized ( also altruism as a defense mechanism). Repetition compulsion is also involved, as one could say that there cannot be any undoing without repetition, and also situations reminiscent of the original traumata were actively sought by them. More specifically, by moving to formerly autocratic societies all four exposed themselves to the danger of abuse. However, in spite of the hazards which are necessary concomitants of the "heroic resolution", the outcome was growthful in all four cases, ranging from working through the challenge (Joan), to asserting one's boundaries, exploding the 'family myth' of the happy united family in the workplace and withdrawing from a destructive pathogenic situation (Inge). For the sake of completeness and fairness it needs to be stated that there is no way of knowing, of course, how it would have gotten played out with these four people had they moved to different societies.
A FEW WORDS ON PREVENTION OF MASS TRAUMATIZATION
The tall order is what to do with societies of victims. We know what happened in one such society in the region (former Yugoslavia) over the past few years, where it manifested itself in extrapunitive/sadistic ways. In Hungary its intropunitive/masochistic aspects are more apparent, with a high suicide, alcoholism, cigarette smoking, and death rate. We need to help victims heal, not only for their own sake, but to break the cycle of victimhood and victimization. How can it be done on a societal scale? Not too much work has been done in this area so far, but some ideas have emerged and a few of them have even been tested (Ajdukovic, 1997, Barath, 1996, Danieli, 1988, Lumsden, 1996, Mayer, 1994, Pick, 1996 and 1997). A few examples: art therapy for children administered by teachers in schools, a holiday being designated as 'The Day of Victims', movement therapy in large groups for mothers of young traumatized children, reconciliation and forgiveness-rituals being promoted in a way appropriate for the given society. For that matter, all this also applies to the people in all societies in this information age of ours whom the French appropriately call "les exclus", the excluded ones, whether they be teenagers in American Black ghettoes, in Hungarian Gypsy ghettoes, people of Korean descent in Japan, or Aborigines in Australia, to mention just a few examples. We need to find ways to heal the victims as otherwise the cycle is likely to go on ad infinitum. However, it still feels like those of us who press for prevention are baying at the moon.
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