The Essential Being: Psychoanalytic Understanding of Totalitarianism

This book explores the concept of “pre-conceptual trauma”, drawing in particular on the pioneering research of Wilfred Bion. A comparison is established between two different groups of individuals: five well-known dictators and five famous creative individuals. The authors have defined “pre-conceptual traumas” as ubiquitous experiences that all human beings go through during the first years of their lives, when a temporary absence changes into a permanent presence, determining the outcome of what any individual might do or perform in the future. Pre-conceptual traumas split the mind into two dialectical and correlated states: the ＂traumatized＂ (conflictive or pathological), and the ＂non-traumatized＂ (developmental or normal).

The authors use an analogous approach for the understanding of “suicide terrorism”, exploring how some events or “pre-conceptual traumas” determine an attitude that when facilitated by certain environmental circumstances could induce the emergence of a “tyrannical ruler”, or the total absence of the capacity to be aware of being “alive” as we see in “suicide terrorism”. It is the incidence of both dimensions continuously interacting, between human beings and the reality where they have been immersed, which could induce specific traumatic events to become meaningful and operational for the whole life of the individual.