Beyond Invisible Walls: The Psychological Legacy of Soviet Trauma, East European Therapists and Their Patients

by Jacob D. Lindy (Editor), Robert Jay Lifton (Editor)

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Westerners watched those who had survived the era of Soviet trauma emerge into what we hoped would be the exhilarating light of freedom. What we have witnessed, however, is a slow and painful process of progression and regression, of hope and disillusionment, of unexpected psychological invisible walls that block the progress we had hoped for. In Beyond Invisible Walls, East European therapists, themselves, draw a compelling picture of the waves of trauma that their people endured, the institutions of trauma that remained well after Stalin's era, and their impact on survivors and their families. They describe the psychological remnants of those walls that confine people by unconsciously preserving old adaptations to political terror, walls that divide one part of the mind from another, and walls that rise between one generation and the next. These therapists' stories allow us a striking glimpse into how patients' trauma evokes the therapists' own wounds; how both speaker and empathic listener find their way to a healing process, how the two begin to dismantle these invisible walls.

270 pages, Hardcover

First published November 2, 2001

Reviews

[Oxana Bayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is my shame I knew so little of the Soviet history in other East European countries except for Ukraine. Some particular examples kept me in complete owe of how dreadful the regime, the ideology could work completely destroying personal space and even the very notion of identity.
I think history is never lucid and peaceful and every period brings its own traumas and destruction. I feel puzzled of what we could do in order to fight human self-destructive nature. I humbly hope knowledge and understanding will aid this.

[Richard Demma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a rich resource for anyone dealing with the aftermath of Soviet trauma in Eastern/Central Europe - some quite surprising revelations, for example how the suppressed and denied guilt of parent collaborators can be projected onto their children, how denied memories of trauma - kept hidden to protect children - can still wreak havoc on the psyches of the young. Also the many examples of countertransference on the part of therapists was fascinating to read. Such a rich and varied survey of disparate cultures and differing traumas, this is really an invaluable source book.

[Aaron Makepeace · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astounding therapeutic insight into the mental repercussions of living under various stripes of authoritarianism, state indoctrination & incessant stress.

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was too disjointed and over-the-place. It would've be been a lot better if it was a single book that combined issue, traits and cases from the different countries in one clear narrative, instead of having bits and pieces.
It's still useful, but would've benefited a lot from more and deeper research on a lot of topics.