Main description:

This book relates the psychoanalytic journey of a man in his thirties, a grandson of a high-level SS officer, whose case illustrates how individuals can sometimes suffer greatly or cause the suffering of other innocent persons, simply because they are descendants of perpetrators. In it, technical considerations in treating such an individual, including countertransference issues and concepts related to transgenerational transmissions-for example, identification, depositing, dissociation, encapsulation, and remembering through actions-are explored. The man had a repeating daydream of carrying a big egg under his arm. The imagined egg, representing his encapsulated dissociated state, contained the mental representation of his Nazi grandfather and his grandfather's victims, along with images of most tragic historical events. He attempted to turn his grandfather's image from a life-taker to a life-giver and wished to own the older man's grandiose specialness, while fearing the loss of his own life. These opposite aims created unnamed "catastrophes".

Contents:

Preface , Introduction , The impact of the Third Reich: The end of "silence" in psychoanalysis , Victor: A man who lived in two different worlds , A look at narcissism, splitting, depositing, dissociation, and encapsulation , The "Firefighter" , A dead old man whose heart kept beating , The T4 euthanasia programme , Locked-up letters , Let there be oxygen , Legal redress and the psychology of remembering through actions , Photography, maggots, and jumping over a barbed wire fence , Searching for and finding a new life , Another look at identification, depositing, and transgenerational transmission