Can Family Therapy Work for Nations?

To reconcile with one’s enemies, and end the cycle of long-term hatred, has been an elusive, nearly unachievable, goal for mankind. We seem to need enemies. For the victims, there are few examples of peace with forgiveness with the perpetrators, especially when their story is filled with atrocities. For the perpetrators, we rarely see admissions of responsibility with accompanying apologies, the request for forgiveness, and the offering of acceptable reparations.

Typically, the search for peace following hostilities goes the other way for both victim and perpetrator. Both sides feel unjustly treated. Rather than seeking out and ultimately achieving a new tolerance and respect for the other, both sides will hold on to its group’s memories of the injustices done against them, and will especially commemorate the memories of atrocities. The stories of injustice are told to their children, setting in motion the perpetuation of hatred across generations.

The same problem of sustained hatred between nations and ethnic groups can be seen at the family level. Those of us who work with divorcing couples and feuding family members find few examples of reconciliation following deep hurt. Couples who once loved each other, and then came to resent and even to hate each other, rarely find their way to a new, mutually respectful relationship. While therapists, mediators and religious leaders may advocate the value of letting go of past hurts and forgiving one’s nemesis, these laudable goals are rarely met in the consulting room or in the bedroom. We may point to Nelson Mandela’s ability to embrace his captors and lead his nation to a peaceful revolution and reconciliation with past enemies. Unfortunately, Mandela seems to have had a superhuman capacity. The differences between Mandela and most victims throw a clear light on mankind. Do we benefit psychologically from holding on to our disagreements and our memories of injustice? Are we hard-wired for hatred?

It seems obvious that psychologists and psychiatrists should focus more on the emotional processes that accompany reconciliation. Why haven’t they done so? In part, successful reconciliation is rare, both at the group, and at the family level, and while such examples do occur therapists rarely write about them. The maintenance of hatred is an easier story to tell [and to sell.] Damage, illness and trauma are the standard fare of clinical examples and research projects, not forgiveness and peace. Since we desperately need to know how to stop hating, examples of reconciliation need to be told wherever they are found.

Couples who once hated each other, but later resumed their marriage on a new footing or who developed a post divorce friendship, appear to follow a clear pathway repairing their broken relationship. They begin the healing process in the same condition of mistrust and hostility, as do perpetual enemies. Both can recite their stories of mistreatment by the other, and the resulting injuries. But – and this is one crucial difference – the reconciling couples – just like Mandela - also exhibit a special form of empathy for the other’s story. They agree to listen to each other tell his or her story without rebuttal, and place compassion above competition for the greater hurt. Perhaps this empathy had developed as a result of childhood adversity and became a strength before the current trauma.

After listening empathetically, the reconciling combatants arrive at a newly collaborative relationship. This process parallels the truth telling sessions held by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC] in South Africa. Perpetrators and victims sat in the same room telling their stories in public to the whole country, and each side listened respectfully to their enemies. The result, although not totally satisfactory, was powerful and transformative.

The public step of empathy building that was taken in South Africa by Bishop Tutu and his colleagues [and which appears necessary between warring couples] has not yet occurred publicly between Palestinians and Israelis. Each side is still invested in their own victimhood over the others’. From the perspective of the mental health professional they have not yet taken the necessary first step towards reconciliation. Each side wants to defeat the other.

A second step taken by reconciling couples is their apologies to each other for hurts given and received. As Lazare (2004) has pointed out, a well-done apology has an amazing power to heal. The apology converts the perpetrator into someone human, and encourages the victim to forgive. Ex-spouses report that they felt liberated by a thorough and believable apology. Most important, the apology and its accompanying reparations lifted the victim from the humiliated state in which they had lived to a position of renewed empowerment. The apology healed the wound.

Once couples have experienced empathic understanding and appropriate apologies, they can achieve the third step, a respectful coexistence that they never before experienced. With children to raise, the couples develop a new, trusting dependency on one another. On the international level, with empathy and apology South Africans may be moving towards a similarly enduring reconciliation. One can hope. At the same time other longstanding combatants - the Armenians and the Turks, the Israelis and Palestinians, the white and black Americans all come to mind - still seem far from a sincere peaceful reconciliation. (See Sluzki, 2006, for an elaboration of these steps towards reconciliation on the group level..)

Who can perform such acts of empathy and apology? Who can regain trust and respect for an enemy? Clearly, we need to understand such success stories and attempt to apply our understanding outside the clinical setting. A few psychiatrists with extensive clinical experience with divorcing couples, and disputing individuals and families are venturing cautiously into the arena of ethnic and national hatred. They intend to meet beginning in 2008, hopefully to advance our understanding of the psychological and emotional politics of successful reconciliation.

Steven J. Wolin, MD, department of psychiatry, George Washington University Washington Medical School, Washington DC.