Abstract: This chapter examines the manifestations of antisemitism within three international online large groups convened by the Greek Institute of Relational and Group Psychotherapy following the October 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. Drawing on the social unconscious (Hopper, Fromm), relational psychoanalysis, and group-as-whole dynamics, the analysis traces how 80–120 mental health professionals enacted unconscious antisemitic patterns across three phases: initial idealization of the Greek cofacilitators as “neutral” containers, subsequent demonization marked by paranoid suspicion and conspiratorial attribution, and finally, fragmented empathy, where Jewish grief became conditional upon political disclaimers. The chapter introduces “conditional solidarity” as a contemporary antisemitic mechanism whereby Israeli professionals’ trauma is delegitimized unless accompanied by self-condemnation. Integrating the Talmudic Bar Kamtza narrative and the Greek Danaids myth, the analysis illuminates how institutional failures to process collective mourning perpetuate cycles of envy, aggression, and unmetabolized loss. The concept of “institutional illiteracy” describes professional communities’ inability to hold the complexity of Jewish identity, resulting in persecutory-paranoid dynamics rather than reflective containment. This psychodynamic approach reveals antisemitism’s persistence within ostensibly progressive therapeutic spaces.
Abstract: My group-analytic work in small and large groups focuses on analyzing group communication through the group. As group analysts, we create space for talking about emotions and fantasies and encourage group participants to endure the coexistence of great diversity, perceive inner resonance phenomena, and enter into dialogue about them. To work on social rifts, we have to face the challenge of dealing openly with hatred, hostility, and conspiracy myths – including antisemitic stereotypes. Scenes from a small group in Berlin in 2024 show the balancing act of group-analytic work, in which politically motivated remarks are viewed neither on the level of rational arguments nor as purely individual phenomena. To this day, the group presented here continues to engage in circular movements with its own fear, with abrupt indifference in social interaction, with the effect of prejudice and rumor in society, and with moments of silent retreat. Group analysis can promote trust in one’s own abilities and relationships and is, at the same time, an effective means of dealing with destructive aggression such as antisemitism in the long term. I see this as an important attempt to counter the social crisis of trust with an increase in sensitivity and the ability to speak.
