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