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The transgressor
Although this figure is part of the typology proposed by Enriquez and
which was then “adapted” to situations of humanitarian intervention, it
doesn’t seem to me that this model, at least in the case of Kosovo, was
present in a significant manner. I will, however, describe it briefly so as to
offer a comparison to the reader. The fundamental calling of this model is to
favour the emergence of spontaneity, festiveness and protest of institutions.
In a humanitarian context, this model “expresses a sort of megalomania of
being the father, the parent that generates the unknown and promulgates
transgression and generalized instability” (Enriquez, 1980: 126-127).
The destroyer
Psychosocial Notebook, Volume 2, October 2001
The destroyer model functions at an essentially unconscious level, in a
kind of interpersonal interaction that tends to encourage or favour a conflict
of affections in the other. According to Enriquez, who refers to Searles
(Searles, 1978), “This kind of desire is present in every affectionately
healthy individual,” and therefore comes into play in every therapeutic or
training relationship. I will add that in a therapeutic relationship, as is often
imagined by humanitarian workers, their perceived function as “helper of
‘unfortunate peoples’ ” and their desire to heal the other, might be reactive
training: a defence mechanism responding to the desire to make the other
ill. The desire to form can be affected or induced by the opposite desire to
de-form, break, and shatter the other.
After all, how could a humanitarian avoid the risk of this contradiction?
His position is such that he could, on one hand, give his group of “assisted
people” an incentive for autonomy and encouragement to search for
their own resources, but he could also refer back to their own closed interpretive
system, leaving them with a situation of interpretive regression and
dependency.
With this brief and concise review, I intended to indicate that every trainer
(and the humanitarian worker often refers to this figure for guidance)
will or is possessed by one or more of these ghosts. He must recognize
them and question himself about their impacts, on himself and on others,
if he does not wish, by offering his services as “rescuer”, to transform his
intervention into a dangerous situation that perpetuates violence.
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