The Liberation Psychology Program has published a new paper titled “Unconscious Legacies: Collective Trauma, Identity, and the Psychoanalytic Roots of Power and Occupation,” authored by Serene Afifi, a clinical psychologist practicing across hospital, community, and private settings.
This paper examines the enduring impact of collective trauma and unconscious defense mechanisms on identity formation, power dynamics, and cycles of re-victimization. Through a psychoanalytic and socio-historical lens, it explores how historical traumas, particularly exile, antisemitism, and the Holocaust, have shaped Jewish national consciousness, reinforcing narratives of existential threat and survival. The paper seeks to demonstrate how unresolved trauma continues to structure political realities, sustain expansionist ideologies, and perpetuate intergenerational cycles of oppression. Finally, the paper argues that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only a geopolitical struggle but also a manifestation of intergenerational trauma, collective defense mechanisms, and historical reenactment.
To read the paper in English, click here.
An Arabic translation of the paper will be published soon.
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