Large Group Identity Case Study

There are several reasons why we have to study the workings of large-group or ethnic identity and the role of mental representation which shapes identity through historical events. First, every individual identity that a person possesses is strongly intertwined with a large-group identity. We can find the clue to understanding the ways how group identity shows mental conflicts. Second, the mental representations of historical events are a secret link between individual and large-group psychology. Without this significant element, we will never fully grasp the workings of large-group psychology. Third, when an individual’s symptomatic expressions are inflected by large-group historical experience, the psychopathology connects individual to their

Large-group identity can be explained as the subjective experience of plenty of people which is linked by a sense of sameness. Also, they share characteristics with others in foreign groups. Despite the fact that people usually feel that they are all extensions of each other as members of their group, people who are under the canvas of a large-group identity do differentiate themselves within the large group. For example, it can be explained by profession, clan, family and social status.

This explanation of how individual identity is related with large-group identity address why the notion of serious threats to a large-group identity cause a shared psychic terrors or confusion. The large-group identity comes out to member’s primary concern through shared stress and repair. However, the tent canvas tend to remain erect when a leader and followers in such circumstances under shared main goal. According to Volkan, he identified seven threads as a chosen traumas which is mental representations of past shared historical

I have explained the concepts of individual and large-group identity based on Volkan’s article. Also, particularly focuses on chosen trauma which refers to the shared mental representation of a past historical event. The historical event which they receive from an enemy group during suffering losses or humiliation. Due to the immeasurable of the trauma, group members leave with psychological wounds or humiliation which they pass down from generation to generation. Subsequent generations have gone through many tasks just as mourning losses or humiliation. The mental representation original trauma becomes a group identity’s larker since the given tasks are shared by most members of the group. A political leaders tend to reactivate chosen traumas during times of extreme change in a large-group’s history or during the large-group regression. This reactivation might become a foothold to go further the existing large-group