A compelling collection from the International Dialogue Initiative (IDI) which showcases its groundbreaking work. Powerful emotions such as fear and powerful defenses against these emotions are at the heart of intractable conflicts. The IDI works towards a framework for understanding these intense feelings to bring opposing sides together. With contributions from Lord John Alderdice, Deniz Aribog?an, Abdülkadir Cevik, Senem B. Çevik, Coline Covington, Robi Friedman, David Fromm, M. Gerard Fromm, Hiba Husseini, Aleksandr V. Obolonski, Ford Rowan, Regine Scholz, Edward R. Shapiro, Vamik D. Volkan. The International Dialogue Initiative (IDI) is a private, international, multidisciplinary group comprised of psychoanalysts, academics, diplomats, and other professionals who bring a psychologically informed perspective to the study and amelioration of societal conflict. It aims to provide a reflective space to enable an understanding of how the emotional and historical background of hostile relations ? often related to trauma ? is being experienced in the present. By doing so, antagonists can overcome resistances to dialogue and facilitate the discovery of peaceful solutions to intergroup problems. This book brings together key members of the IDI to present the theory and practice of the important work they do. At its heart, the book holds the idea that, while traumatic experiences may happen to an individual or a family, they also affect society and large-group identity over long periods of time. In that way, trauma plays out between generations and between countries. The book is divided into three parts: theory, application, and methodology. Trauma is the key thread running throughout and the distinguished contributors investigate healing, dehumanisation, memory, the pandemic, war, terrorism, identity, culture, the law, justice, and religion, among many other fascinating topics. The authors bring in case studies from all over the world, including the United States, Northern Ireland, Russia, Israel, Turkey, Germany, Egypt, and Palestine. To make sense of these, they draw on a wide range of approaches: group relations theory, group analytic theory, psychoanalysis, large-group psychology, psychodynamic theory, psychology, economics, sociology, political science, history, journalism, and the law, to name but a few. This must-read book brings theory to vivid life and brings hope that our fractured world can learn to heal. AUTHOR: Vamik Volkan, MD, DFLAPA, received his medical education at the School of Medicine, University of Ankara, Turkey. He is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville and an emeritus training and supervising analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Washington, DC. In 1987, Dr Volkan established the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) at the School of Medicine, University of Virginia. CSMHI applied a growing theoretical and field-proven base of knowledge to issues such as ethnic tension, racism, large-group identity, terrorism, societal trauma, immigration, mourning, transgenerational transmissions, leader?follower relationships, and other aspects of national and international conflict. A year after his 2002 retirement, Dr Volkan became the Senior Erik Erikson Scholar at the Erikson Institute of the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts and he spent three to six months there each year for ten years.