On Dissociation, Integration, and the Judea People’s Front. Or How I Became a Bold Freedom Fighter in Turin

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” (Shakespeare , Romeo and Juliet)

The timeless film by the Monty Python troupe, “Life of Brian,” rose and returned in my mind again and again during the seventh summer school in Turin 2024. Perhaps it was the encounter with the Latin-Roman culture that awakened in me, as a Jewish woman, the horrors of the cruel conqueror. Perhaps it was the climb in the elevator of the Cinema Museum, which was supposed to be a synagogue and has turned into a treasure of the city, that reminded me of the friend of the Roman governor in that film, known as “Biggus Dickus.” More than anything else, however, I recalled the marvelous scene in which Brian, the doppelgänger of Jesus of Nazareth, escapes from the Romans to seek out the Jewish people’s underground movement. He asks a group of people if they are the sought-after underground and they tell him that they are indeed The People’s Front of Judea, while the man sitting some distance away is The Judea people’s front. A completely different matter. Something entirely different that only those from the inner circle could discern.

That’s how I felt, an outsider guest, at the international conference organized by Gasi. During the group sessions, it became clear to me that I had arrived at the High school reunion. There are “inner circle guys,” there are “wise ones.” There are fringe people and people at the center. There is a history of expulsion and marginalization, and there are various violent, frightening realities in background. The advantage and disadvantage of coming from the outside is that you don’t understand the nuances. What is the difference between the popular movement The People’s Front of Judea, and The Judea people’s front? And why, for God’s sake, aren’t they fighting together against the Roman tormentor? And who exactly is the Roman tormentor? At times, I felt that I was the tormentor.

It is impossible to encompass all the things that happened during those five days. 110 curious people seeking to understand something about interpersonal, group, organizational, and cultural dynamics. I will describe only a few movements, perhaps peripheral, that I experienced.

The first astonishing movement occurred between the large group and the first dreaming group. In the large group, the Israeli-Palestinian struggle quickly took its regular place at center stage. The entire group responded to the defensive dance where Israelis and pro-Palestinians held each other by the throat (symbolically, of course), asking one another for recognition of pain and failing to reciprocate. The frustration was great on both sides. One participant, dressed in a scarf that signified support for the pro-Palestinian cause, approached me at the end of the day. She asked my name and introduced herself. She said her name means “Gazelle,” a deer. Such gentleness and tenderness in a name. When she asked what my name meant, I replied that my name Ya’el, is that of a biblical heroine. In the biblical story of Yael and Sisera from the Old Testament, Yael was a woman who sat in her tent and happened to encounter Sisera, the general of the enemy. In the story, she responded to his request for water by giving him something better – milk. He fell asleep in the tent, perhaps when the mother-infant dynamic was activated within him. Yael took a hammer and a peg and crushed his head.

There are several layers to the story: a man and a woman, a murderer and a conquering general. A female heroin, a woman who sedates the enemy in order to kill him. This is the female hero after whom I was named after. A good breast that provides milk and turns into a murderous breast.

After the brief moment between us at the door, I was startled. I felt that I had answered in a way that reinforced the struggling area. I asked myself what had acted within me. Did I identify with this heroine? Did I perhaps sense a projective identification that wanted to eliminate me? To put me to sleep with good manners and then smash my head? Or perhaps I wanted to smash her head? On the conscious level, I was indeed pleased with the exchange of words; I was interested in her. It is not often that I get to step out of my echo chamber and hear new, different voices. On the unconscious level, however, there was much anxiety at that moment, unnoticed by me, completely disconnected from my awareness. Yet it was very present. One could say – it’s your name; you didn’t choose it. Not every George is a dragon slayer. Yet still – in the psychoanalytic world, we believe these things have meaning and influence.

The next morning, during the social dreaming, when materials involving predatory animals arose, alongside hunted creatures, another moment unfolded within me. Perhaps it was due to the invitation to mindfulness, to connect with the body, or perhaps due to the egalitarian task, where my unconscious does not belong to a specific nation or a particular conflict, but to the social matrix as a whole; or maybe for other reasons – the split thinking underwent integration. In the place where we were all dreaming together. And suddenly – I either understood or recalled that there is another interpretation of my name – that it is the name of an animal, an Ibex,  also a type of gazelle, which possesses strength with its long horns, yet also agility, gentleness and tenderness. I felt that I had distanced myself from the internal threat, from the identity of the murderer or freedom fighter, and had become a gazelle. An Ibex. I approached the split essence and perhaps became closer to or more alike the other gazelle.

What was there in the matrix that imposed upon me one interpretation and not the other? Was it my unconscious desire to eliminate my enemy? Were there unconscious, archaic materials from the larger group? Perhaps the split of the meaning of the name expresses the difficulty of being gentle and powerless in a dangerous environment. It seemed that one could see how the split and dissociation occurred precisely within the large group. In this group, existed a space that was debating, polemical, and very partial. Whereas in the social dreaming matrix, an integration occurred that was truly astonishing, almost mystical. There – it was precisely the equality, the feeling that each of us contributes something to the emergence of construction, creating a fabric, towards the understanding of something good. And perhaps – the fact that the dream matrix is not bound to reality. The materials from which it is formed are dream materials, woven occurrences, allowing this matrix to be more integrative, more whole.

The second movement that dealt with the relationship between reality and fantasy occurred in the small group – someone in the group spoke about the camera in the room and the fear that we were being filmed. This person was clearly a collective voice, but I felt alienated from the anxiety. The group seemed to me to be paranoid. Why would anyone want to film us? Who would have an interest in us? What did this have to do with me? The group collaborated in combating the paranoia: one participant took a scarf from another participant and placed it over the object that was claimed to be a camera. I felt this was an absurd, unnecessary action against an imagined enemy. The group fantasized about how someone, a guard or a police officer, would come and force them to remove the scarf. I felt detached from the suspiciousness and looked at the people around me with a certain arrogance, as if I was outside the group. I wondered how they could be activated by something that could not happen. And then – to my utter surprise – the door opened and suddenly a guard entered. He indeed came because there was someone watching the cameras and declared that scarves should not be placed over the cameras. In an instant, reality penetrated the room! The anxiety materialized, and paranoia found a basis. Instantly, denial faded away and I felt intense fear. Was this a moment of splitting? The cameras – were they meant to protect us or to pursue us? The experience of feeling apart from the justified paranoia forced itself upon me and the group. I understood that while I felt I was holding onto sanity against the paranoia, I was actually holding onto denial against reality. This moment touches, in my eyes, on questions that currently engage us worldwide – what is reality? Who is responsible for translating reality to us? And how does our personal understanding of reality relate to our personal attachment style, alongside the powerful unconscious processes of the group and the organization, and society  as a whole.

I recalled that on October 7th, when I saw videos of cars with people dressed in black, armed, invading sleepy towns during the holiday in Israel, I also felt it was a Hollywood movie. Unbelievable. I did not believe that what was being reported could be real. I experienced the modern experience we all share – how, in the age of post-truth, can we believe that the reality reported by others is indeed real? And what does it mean for each of us if we do not know and agree on what reality is? If judging by the movement in the room – this could be a choice that involves a dangerous disconnection. Not knowing something we are required to know.

In that Monty Python film, Brian is escaping from the Romans and the crowd is chasing him, convinced that he is the Messiah. In the morning, when he wakes up, he discovers a multitude of followers shouting to him that he is the Messiah, and he shouts back that he is not, and that they are all individuals who think their own thoughts. Their crowd shouts back, “Yes, you’re absolutely right, we are all individuals!” Only one lone man raises his voice and says, “I’m not.” It is a funny, absurd moment. The question of who knows something about reality turns the solitary person, proclaiming that he is not an individual, into an anomaly, a madman, and of course, it’s funny.

It is not simple to disconnect in an age of such difficult events in the world and enter a bubble that is the summer school. The challenge I felt in the different groups throughout the group process was the systemic attempt and tremendous effort to listen to different realities, to know the experience of the other, and to identify elements of the emerging matrix while maintaining subjective experience. To be part of the emerging entity without relinquishing one’s own existence. To be both Yael the heroine and the gazelle. Both horned and gentle. To hold the ends of the split between paranoia and the desire to get closer and expose oneself. It seems to me that this is a heroic endeavor doomed to failure. Yet I experienced the group-analytic effort as a challenge perhaps aimed at helping participants identify the fragmented and projected parts within themselves and to the other, and to reclaim them inward and outward, in integration. To be the gazelle and the hunter, in their mutual dance, a dance of strength and weakness, aggression and closeness, curiosity and suspicion. A dance of death and life.