A Psychoanalyst on His Own Couch

A Biography of Vamik Volkan and His Psychoanalytic and Psychopolitical Concepts

Atik, Ferhat

• Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781912691166
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Vam?k Volkan puts himself on his couch and tells his fascinating life story as an international psychoanalyst who has seen and studied humans in many parts of the world to renowned writer, scriptwriter, and director Ferhat Atik.

Born to Turkish parents in Cyprus in 1932, Vam?k moved to the US in 1957 where he still resides today. Over the past half century, his career has flourished in ways few could have foreseen. He has founded many worthwhile organisations and initiatives and has taken his research and work into real-world international relations. Therefore, any book about Vam?k Volkan cannot limit itself to mere biography; it is also a professional guide, the life of a professor and his real-life stories, a means towards understanding humanity, societies, memories and modes of psychological treatment. Within, are many influential and widely accepted concepts that Dr Volkan introduced to the wider world.

Ferhat Atik carried out exhaustive research involving many hours of interviews with Dr Volkan as well as reading and digesting all forty-two of his book. Once Atik had mastered the minutiae of Dr Volkan's works, the interviews were transcribed and they became the backbone of the book. Dr Volkan's first-hand accounts are throughout this thoughtful and empathetic biography and he has also written a foreword.

This collaborative biography is full of fascinating insight into a modest man whose work took him to some of the most combative and volatile parts of the world, where his interventions had positive, real-world effects for us all. Professionals working within his field and also those outside will find it full of inspiration and innovation - a riveting read for anyone with an interest in international relations, which should be us all in these uncertain times.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half title
• Full title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Vamik D. Volkan
• About the author
• About Vamik Volkan
• About this book
• A history of Cyprus
• Chapter One - Rengin—a bus ride
• Chapter Two - Father’s memoirs
• Chapter Three - Vignettes of life
• Chapter Four - Coming to the USA and later on
• Chapter Five - Friendship with Denktaş
• Chapter Six - The Immortal Atatürk book
• Chapter Seven - Psychoanalytical practices: “What does Dr. Volkan treat?”
• Chapter Eight - Various aspects of large-group psychology
• Chapter Nine - A case study of a large group under stress: the birds of Cyprus
• Chapter Ten - Linking objects, linking phenomena, and nostalgia in large groups
• Chapter Eleven - Immigration, globalization, and racism
• Chapter Twelve - Intergenerational transmissions, chosen traumas, and entitlement ideologies
• Chapter Thirteen - On belief and the psychology of religion
• Chapter Fourteen - A psychopolitical approach for the reduction of large-group conflict: the Tree Model
• Last words
• References
• Index