When our shadow makes us blind and deaf to suffering: The power of a cultural complex in Israel

When confronted with information about life under continuous trauma caused by humans, there is a part of the psyche that resists knowing. Various mechanisms of denial and disavowal are used in order to avoid knowing. Elana Lakh will offer a Jungian understanding of the mechanisms that prevent us from knowing and owning our shadow acts from the perspective of an Israeli analyst looking at the Israeli society. Drawing on the concepts of the collective shadow and the cultural complex in the Israeli context, this talk will examine the obstacles to seeing, hearing and acknowledging the human experience of trauma suffered by the Palestinian people.  In light of Erich Neumann’s idea of “New Ethics” based on taking responsibility for one’s shadow, the talk will attempt to look at the shadow projection processes that compromise the possibility of acknowledging Palestinian suffering. Lakh will try to describe the archetypal themes and historical processes that underlie the Israeli cultural complexes of victimhood and power, and to explain how the collective trauma of the past is used in the service of denying and justifying the suffering perpetrated in the present.