Psychoanalytic Study Research Articles

La névrose de destinée

The “Destiny Neurosis” is a psychoanalytic concept described for the first time by Freud in 1920 and then by the psychoanalyst Helen Deutsch, who gave is denomination to it in 1930. According to Freud, the unconscious repetition of tragic destinies is linked to the “repetition compulsion”, underlied by the death drive, opposite to the principle of pleasure. This led some subjects to repeated and involuntary failures and personal tragedies. Helene Deutsch described this feature as a neurotic syndrome, near to hysteria, and underlied by aggressive drives repressed linked to the Oedipus complex. After those initial descriptions, few psychoanalytic studies and more again few psychiatric works have been dedicated to this more or less forgotten syndrome. However, this syndrome corresponds to real clinical situations where some life histories are characterized by the repetition of tragic events. The “Failure Neurosis”, described in 1930 by the French Psychoanalyst René Laforgue is apparented to the “Destiny Neurosis”, when, in a more or less unconscious manner, the subject's biography is marked by repeated failures, and inability to reach any success. We propose clinical criteria for the “Destiny Neurosis”, specially monomorphism of tragic events (for example repeated husband's death, or alcoholic successive marriages…) and the totally ignorance by the patient of the drives of his acts, attributed to hazard or bad luck. Epidemiological and clinical studies would be necessary for a more accurate delimitation of this somehow ignored pathology.

Investigating Trauma in Narrating World War I: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Pat Barker’s Regeneration

The present paper seeks to critically read Pat Barker’s Regeneration in terms of Cathy Caruth’s psychoanalytic study of trauma. This analysis attempts to trace the concepts of latency, post-traumatic stress disorders, traumatic memory, and trauma in Barker’s novel in order to explore how trauma and history are interrelated in the narrative of past history and, particularly, in the history of World War I. The present paper also demonstrates how Barker’s novel Regeneration acts as the narrative of trauma that vocalizes the silenced history of shell-shocked soldiers of World War I to represent British society, the history that has been concealed due to social and individual factors. The study thus investigates the dissociative disorders which are experienced by traumatized survivors of World War I as the aftermath of traumatic experiences of wartime. In addition, it argues how time moves for the traumatized victim and how the notion of latency in terms of Caruth’s theory is traceable in Barker’s novel. In Regeneration, the traumatized survivors are haunted with traumatic memory of past history; furthermore, past history constantly disrupts their present and the victims are in continuous shift from present time to past time. Time thus loses its linearity in the narrative of traumatized survivors. Keywords: Latency, post-traumatic stress disorders, traumatic memory, trauma

사랑과 공격성에 관한 정신분석적 고찰과 치유상담

본 논문은 사랑과 공격성에 대한 정신분석적 성찰에 관한 글이다. 사랑과 공격성은 정신분석의 고전적 주제이다. 그 이유는 사랑과 공격성은 대개 무의식의 세계와 깊이 연결되어 나타나기 때문이다. 또한 우리 안에서 사랑과 공격성을 결정짓는 추동의 세계, 무의식적인 체험과 환상의 세계, 현재 인간관계의 원형이 될 수 있는 심리내적 대상관계, 사랑과 공격성과 관련된 자아와 초자아의 기능 등에 대해 우리자신을 파악할 때 우리는 우리자신을 더 깊이 이해할 수 있기 때문이다. 그렇다면 사랑은 공격성을 중화하고 통합할 수 있을까? 만약 그렇다면 어떻게 사랑은 공격성을 끌어안을 수 있다는 희망에 대해 우리는 말할 수 있는가? 사랑에 빠지는 역량은 커플 관계에 기초가 되는 초석이라 할 수 있다. 우리는 우선, 사랑에 빠지고 커플 되는 과정에 있어서 투사적 동일시의 위치를 살펴보았다. 본 소고는 커플관계의 감정적 양가성의 차원에 한정하여 사랑과 공격성을 살펴보았다. 언제 공격성이 나타나는가? 우리는 커플관계를 위협하는 공격성과 공격성의 이중의 의미, 대상을 향한 공격성, 시간적 차원에서 나타나는 공격성을 연구하였다. 특히 공격성은 커플이 공유한 시간적 차원에서도 다음과 같이 나타나고 있음을 지적하였다. 노화와 질병에 대한 두려움, 파트너에게 매력을 잃게 되는 것의 두려움, 상대에게 과도하게 의존하는 것의 두려움, 다른 누군가에게 버림받을 것에 대한 두려움, 그리고 자신이나 파트너의 신체건강에 대한 무모한 무관심으로 나타나는 시간의 현실을 무시하거나 부인하려는 무의식적 경향성은 모든 원천에서 비롯된 공격성이 드러나는 장이 될 수 있다. 그 후 우리는 성숙한 커플관계와 초자아의 기능, 용서할 수 있는 역량으로서 성숙한 초자아, 초자아의 기능과 사랑이 발달하고 지속되는 방법으로서의 감사, 자기 경계의 초월과 사랑대상과의 하나 됨의 측면을 살펴보았다. 특히 감사는 모든 인간관계를 원만하게 하는 중요한 요소 중의 하나임을 지적하였다. 정신분석적 측면에서 볼 때 감사는 아주 이른 시기에 나타나기 시작하여 발달한다. 우리는 초자아의 기능뿐만 아니라, 커플관계의 사랑이 발달하고 지속되는 방법으로서 감사에 대한 정신분석적 의미를 제시하였다. 본 소고는 사랑과 공격성에 대한 프로이트(Sigmund Freud)의 고전적 정신분석과 후기 프로이트 학파의 논의 중에서 컨버그(Otto Kernberg)의 관점을 중심으로 한 제한된 연구이나, 사랑이 어떻게 공격성을 중화하고 통합하고 끌어안을 수 있는지를 통찰하게 한다.

Annie Ramel, The Madder Stain: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Thomas Hardy

Few approaches in literary analysis can be as divisive and garner as many passionate reactions as psychoanalytical readings. Published as volume 21 of the Contemporary Psychoanalytic Studies book series, Annie Ramel’s The Madder Stain is refreshingly bold in that it unapologetically embraces the Lacanian perspective to examine Thomas Hardy’s work with a unique slant. Hardy has been seen by many scholars as having produced fiction that somehow anticipated Freud’s theories; it is therefore not ...

Imagination and Faith as Survival Tactics: A Psychoanalytical Study of All But My Life by Gerda Weissmann Klein

Gerda Weissmann Klein, the survivor of the Nazi’s genocide, in her autobiography All But My Life narrated how imagination and faith acted as coping mechanisms for survival and how this empowered her mind and body and helped her to live as an immortal spiritual being. She never thought of giving up her hopes and walked ahead through hardships with determination. Thus she survived the torments in Nazi concentration camp, unlike her fellow companions. This paper also focussed attention on major psychological responses shown by individuals when adjusting to loss, ten commonalities of suicide, ‘Coping Skills’ and ‘Applied Relaxation’ techniques, soothing power of music and day dreaming over emotional thoughts. This paper also included the main theoretical aspects suggested by Sigmund Freud, Timothy Williamson, Roy Eugene Davis, Jacques Lacan, Wilfred Bion, Immanuel Kant, Donald Robertson, James Bernard, Arthur Schopenhaur, Erin Buckels, Delroy Paulhus and Daniel Jones, and mentioned briefly the life stories of Napolean Bonaparte, Ethel Muvany and viktor Frankle, similar to that of Gerda’s real life story.

Pick up the baby (or dire consequences will ensue)!

Decades of psychoanalytic developmental studies on children one year of age and under point to the need for maternal soothing when the infant is crying. Contrary to behavioral theorists who recommend letting the infant “cry it out,” data from analytically informed researchers of very different orientations converge on the conclusion that rocking, feeding, and/or verbal soothing by the mothering figure are requisite to set the stage for good mental health during the rest of the child’s development.

A Bionian Approach to the Body and the Feminine in Cammell and Roeg’s Performance

ABSTRACTThis psychoanalytic study of Performance (directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970) explores the importance of the bodily, sensorial, and material aspects of a pivotal moment in the development of the protagonist’s sexual identity and considers how this moment has been conceived as being dependent on a certain containing function that is performed by a female character. Drawing on Bionian and post-Bionian theory, the article proposes that this containing function is fundamentally feminine. The feminine function of Bion’s concept of container is one that has been discussed especially in the theorization of the roles performed by the mother and the analyst. This article aims to investigate the importance of the bodily and the feminine aspects of the container as part of a psychoanalytic conceptualization of psychical growth as they present themselves in this film.

Music Becomes Emotions: The Musical Score in Two Productions of A Streetcar Named Desire

From today’s perspective, Alex North’s score for the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire, which was considered remarkable even at the time, can claim legendary status. The titles of the 16-track score suggest that the music focuses on the characters, the setting, main motifs, crucial events and states of mind. The film soundtrack could thus be denoted as integral to and harmonized with the dramatic action. This is not the case in the 2008 staging at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, where the music composed and selected by Hrvoje Crnić Boxer seems to focus on the protagonist only. The performance revolves around Blanche and could be interpreted as a psychoanalytic study of the play through her subconscious. Analysing the musical layers of these two considerably different productions of Williams’ play opens new interpretative aspects of this complex theatre and film classic from the Deep South literary tradition.

VÍNCULO AFETIVO MATERNO: PROCESSO FUNDAMENTAL À SAÚDE MENTAL

Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa bibliográfica cujo objetivo foi explorar o direcionamento de pesquisas contemporâneas na temática binária vínculo afetivo materno e saúde mental investigando se, nas suas respectivas formulações teóricas, há uma aproximação com os referenciais da psicanálise. Os dados foram coletados na base do Scientific Electronic Library Online - SciELO, tendo sido utilizadas as palavras-chaves vínculo mãe-bebê, apego, risco e saúde mental. Foram selecionadas as publicações de 2014, em língua portuguesa. A análise dos dados levantados levou à identificação de um direcionamento dos estudos para cinco categorias: fatores de risco e de proteção– tema prevalente, evidenciando preocupação com a integridade física e psíquica da criança e, em especial, do bebê - instrumentos de avaliação destes riscos, bem como às questões que envolvem a subjetividade parental além de um avanço em tema pouco abordado, em geral, nas pesquisas científicas: a importância da participação paterna no desenvolvimento infantil. É comum, entre os estudos analisados, a consideração da primeira fase do desenvolvimento humano como um momento de construção simbólica, a partir de uma vivência de proximidade física e emocional da criança com a mãe, ou pessoa substituta, que exerça a função materna nos primeiros anos de vida do bebê. É prevalente a utilização da psicanálise e de estudos psicanalíticos, sobretudo de Bowlby e Winnicott, como recursos teóricos para o entendimento dos objetos de estudos identificados. A partir das conclusões deste estudo, considera-se de relevância que as políticas de saúde, principalmente as relacionadas à atenção humanizada, deem especial atenção aos cuidados nos períodos da gestação bem como no período peri-natal e pós-natal. Além disso, incentiva-se a que novos estudos possam abordar díades de diferentes arranjos familiares da contemporaneidade - paternidade compartilhada, adoções de bebês por casais homoafetivos, dentre outros.

Psychosocial perspectives on end of life care

Personal and professional experience has made the author aware of the way in which emotional responses to vulnerability, life threatening illness, death and dying can significantly influence the course and outcome of medical and social interventions, as well as the provision and quality of care provided. In recent years psychoanalytic studies have enabled a deeper understanding of the unconscious primitive anxieties and associated defences that are part of being human, and to think about the implications for health and social care workers as society strives to meet the needs of an increasingly ageing population. Aspects of psychoanalytic theory, including contemporary applications, have been useful in reflecting on what it means to provide care for those at the end of life. The author will discuss the value of applying psychoanalytic understanding and faculties to this developing area of health and social care. Early findings from a doctoral research project, “Bringing Death Home”, will be referred to. The conclusion will reflect on personal knowledge and lived experience of palliative care social work to consider the significant contribution that relationship-based social work practice can make to the ongoing implementation of the end of life care strategy and the wider integrated care agenda.

The Psychoanalytic Concepts of the Emotional Burnout

The article describes the psychoanalytic concepts of study of the burnout phenomenon, which are based on qualitative approach. This approach is complementary to studies concentrated in the Yeld of organizational and social psychology which are mostly quantitative by nature and give limited insight into the dynamics of burnoutand personal meanings, associated with it. Psychoanalytic studies mainly address two aspects of burnout, namely a disruption of professional identity of people and diZculties at the intersubjective level which are closely interlinked. The tripartite conceptual model of S. Vanheule and P. Verhaeghe is shown which is based on the schema of J. Lacan’s “two mirrors” re[ecting three dynamic rocesses accompanying subjective experience of “burned out” professionals. Alternative models and explanatory concepts of burnout concordant with presented dynamic processes are considered. According to J. Lacan, the processes re[ect the functioning of the mental instances of the Ego, ideal Ego, Ego-ideal and Superego in the process of an increment of subjective knowledge. In the light of the psychoanalytic concepts, emotional burnout is treated as a crisis of identity, generated from the problems of formation of subjectivity in intersubjective interactions. This, in turn, allows to attribute emotional burnout as a general psychological phenomenon, not solely related to the professional activities. The basis of emotional burnout lies in the unconscious con[ict between conscious needs and unconscious drives resulting in the blocking activityand the alienation of the subject from certain aspects of his being. IdentiYcation and analysis of unconscious contradictions, leading to a tension and stagnation of the subject, seems to be promising for prevention and overcoming of the burnout.

Plagued by the Self

Elisabeth Roudinesco, Lacan: In Spite of Everything, trans. Gregory Elliott, London, Verso, 2014.As anyone who has attempted to teach Lacan's work will recognise, there are perhaps as many different Lacans as there are readers of Lacan. The tendency of his concepts to be at once so evocative and yet ultimately evasive makes him a perfect tool for the literary critic, but perhaps not so useful for the medical practitioner. Elisabeth Roudinesco, head of research in history at University of Paris VII and author of three books on the renowned neo-Freudian, would probably reject such an assessment of the situation. Her new work seeks to defend Lacan's reputation as a mental health professional even as she reveals some of the more intimate details of his occasional small madnesses. Lacan: In Spite of Everything (2014) provides a compelling and insightful, if occasionally frustrating, reading experience. Food for thought which, unusually for anything Lacan-related, is also eminently readable.Roudinesco's previous works on Lacan, translated as Jacques Lacan & Co.: a history of psychoanalysis in France, 1925-1985 (1990) and Jacques Lacan (1999), approach the man respectively as an infl uential fi gure in the history of psychoanalysis and then as a great individual thinker in his own right. Now, in Lacan: In Spite of Everything (2014), Roudinesco returns to Lacan in light of his confl icted legacy and, in setting herself up to correct some fl awed interpretations, reveals a range of unexpected and eccentric biographical details in the process. Much like some of Plato's treatment of Socrates, Roudinesco's compelling depiction of Lacan's character emotionally connects the reader to his intellectual propositions as they are expounded. The subject (with a barred S) crouches at the centre of the text daring you to try and know more about him. Yet, all along, we are also reminded of a Lacan who 'embodied the ideals of an institutional psychotherapy and a humanist psychiatry today in disarray' (p152), who was 'the only psychological thinker to consider the legacy of Auschwitz in Freudian fashion' (p7), and whose own reading of Freud was not clinical, but 'deployed as a new humanism promoting individual liberties and an exploration of the irrational side of human nature' (p9). In spite of everything, Lacan remained a 'doctor of the sick' (p152), and we are clearly to respect this. Although this respect does end up making some of his unusual personal habits all the more juicy as gossip.As Roudinesco writes, 'Lacan felt sorry for fathers and hated mothers and families, while himself being an actor in the intra-familial humiliations he denounced' (p37); leaving his pregnant wife for his pregnant mistress, among other tabloid-friendly affaires de coeur. Yet it is Thanatos rather than Eros who we are most often to see haunting his decisions. He seems at once driven and paralysed by a fear of death and a fear of fi nality. Terrifi ed of naming, his published letters are titled writings [Ecrits], his seminars The Seminar, and his television appearance Television. He would 'sleep fewer than fi ve hours a night [and] drive his car without observing basic safety rules' (p97) to maximise his work-time. At work, his analytic sessions got shorter and shorter until 'certain people were doing ten a day, one minute every half-hour' (p114). When we read that, in 1953, he wanted to 'persuade the Pope' (p106) of his theories, the old stereotypes of the patient running the asylum start to come to mind in some of their more cliched forms. Yet, as with any good psychoanalytical case study, it is the method behind the madness which provokes the most interest and moves us beyond the banal task of checking-off symptoms towards a systematic and nuanced appreciation of the condition in which we fi nd ourselves.The linguistic component of Lacan's theory 'the signifying chain: a subject is represented by a signifi er for another signifi er' (p66) - is translated into Roudinesco's core organising metaphor: the 'Plague'. …

The sound of silence: evolution of the object in the relationship of parents of two twins

This paper derives from a longer dissertation submitted for an MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies. Aspects of thinking about silence and significant contributions to the psychoanalytic and psychological research history are discussed in depth as a prologue to the discussion of a case in which the parents of twins were seen by the author in an attempt to encourage more listening as well as talking between the father and mother and with their children. Silence is seen as a significant internal sounding board through which the individual may listen to what others say, to himself, and to enable the birth to new thoughts. The review in depth of the literature on silence is applied to therapeutic work undertaken by the author with a couple one of whose twins was in psychotherapy. The author connects the significance of the absence of silence and the absence of toleration of silence in the couple with absence of the experience of being taken in, contained, and of the experience of being heard and listened to by internal parents.

The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child: A Narrative of Postwar Psychoanalysis

The essay begins in 1945, a moment in psychoanalytic history when three events converge: the closure of the Anna Freud’s war nurseries, the end of the Controversial Discussions in the British Society, and the first appearance of the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (PSOC), edited by Ernst Kris, Heinz Hartmann, and Anna Freud. This paper highlights how PSOC during its first two decades, 1945-1965, continuously engaged with the theoretical and clinical evolution of postwar psychoanalysis. Reviews of PSOC throughout its early history illustrate its extraordinary influence and reach and thus make it an ideal vehicle for studying postwar psychoanalysis. The paper argues that the founding of PSOC represented an act of restitution, an effort to recreate a sense of continuity with an irretrievably lost European psychoanalytic community.

A psychoanalytic study of Petar Laubarda's genesis of creativity

A psychoanalytic study of Petar Laubarda's genesis of creativity

Психоаналітичні дослідження в сучасному українському літературознавстві

The article is devoted to the technique of psychoanalytic literary interpretation in Ukrainian literary criticism. The article deals with the importance and relevance of psychoanalytic narrative’s research. The specificity of the adaptation of psychoanalysis to the Ukrainian cultural space is defined. The basic milestones in the formation and development of psychoanalytic research in Ukrainian literary criticism from the early XX to XXI centuries are given and the main stages of the psychoanalytic school in Ukraine are also outlined. The expediency of studying psychoanalysis as a method of research and interpretation of contemporary fiction literature is proved. The detailed review of Ukrainian researchers’ critical works on the application of psychoanalysis in the study of the writers’ personality and creative works is realized to justify its use to contemporary literature. A lot of attention is paid to works that are appearing in Ukrainian literary and theoretical discourse in recent years (works of S. Pavlychko, N. Zborovska, M. Ilnytskyi, T. Hundorova, M. Moklytsia, I. Zherebkina, A. Pecharskyi, A. Bidiuk and others). They allow to extend the range of psychoanalytic studies involved in literary criticism. The main task of literature of recent decades is clearly outlined. An analysis of the effectiveness of psychoanalytic methodology is trying to be made. According to this aim it is proposed to pay attention to the works of contemporary literature that are written using the psychoanalytic implication (works of N. Zborovska, O. Zabuzhko, E. Kononenko). The discursive method is used in research.

The Chinese totem of dragon and the greek myth of oedipus: a comparative psychoanalytic study

By drawing upon Freud’s provocative interpretation on the psychological foundation of ethical and cultural development, I hope to shed a new light on the meanings and origins of dragon worship in early China and its intriguing analogy with the Greek myth of Oedipus. As I will demonstrate, the psychological condition for the Chinese dragon worship compares well to the psychological syndrome underlying the Greek myth of Oedipus. The two aspects of the Oedipus complex, namely the father complex and repressed incest wishes, boil down to the ambivalent attitude toward the father and the tabooed sexual object. They are both present in the Chinese dragon worship. As a conclusion of my study, I will present a unified interpretation on these two aspects of the Oedipus complex in the Chinese dragon worship. At the same time, I will also make out certain distinctive features of the early Chinese solution to such psychological syndrome that are beyond universal psychoanalytic determinations.

Reading the Plot: The Psychology and Poetics of Pārānūyā in Yūsuf Rakhā’s Kitāb al-ṭughrā

Paranoia, it might be said, is the emotive accomplice of exilic estrangement. This article investigates the psychological and literary dimensions of conspiracist paranoia—radical suspicion that reduces history to the intentions of a global “conspiracy” (muʾāmarah)—in Yūsuf Rakhā’s Kitāb al-ṭughrā: gharāʾib al-tārīkh fī madīnat al-mirrīkh (2011; The Book of the Sultan’s Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars, 2015). While this interpretive style has often been recognized as the specific byproduct of the climate of fear and suspicion engendered by authoritarian nationalist regimes in the 1950s and 1960s, its dramatic recurrence in Rakhā’s post-millennial, proto-revolutionary novel requires a closer reading of its multiple sources and functions. Through dialogue with psychoanalytic and literary studies of paranoia and conspiracy theory, I argue that the delusional complex of Kitāb al-ṭughrā’s Muṣṭafā al-Shurbagī can be understood, in part, as the crisis of an ideal of masculinist agency that the protagonist shares with many others. In addition, the novel performs a special “poetics of paranoia,” which not only foregrounds the artistic pleasures inherent in the practice, but also engages in a creative and critical intertextual relationship—or parody—with famous paranoiacs in Arabic and American literature and public culture. This article also aims to address the current dearth of scholarship on paranoia in Arabic literature, and suggests avenues for future research.

Le temps de l’immigré dans Silences, Addolorata

Works by immigrant writers have been analyzed on the basis of their linguistic aspects and their ways of defining identity. This article deals with another dimension of immigration, namely the temporal experiences of Italian immigrants in Canada dramatized by Marco Micone in Silences (2004), a second version of Gens du silence (1982), Addolorata (1984), and Déjà l’agonie (1988). Largely autobiographical in nature, Micone’s trilogy deals with the experiences of first-generation Italian immigrants following World War II. Left to face a difficult situation, these men and women from rural areas share certain experiences common to first-generation immigrants: the need to find continuity with their pre-immigration past; an often traumatic process; feeling that everyday life is marked by circular time; being stuck in an eternal present, as though time were suspended and perhaps even broken. Their situation modifies— and often inhibits—their temporal perspectives and their ability to project into the future. Such experiences can be read through the words, attitudes, and actions of characters in relation to their integration, and can be seen through a series of episodes from the past (memories the characters cannot avoid) that intrude into present-time, disrupting the chronological order of events. In this article, García Martínez analyzes problematic temporalities mainly through the scope of psychoanalytical studies and through the lens of psychotherapy.

Franks and Saracens

Avner Falk’s Franks and Saracens: Reality and Fantasy in the Crusades ispresented in the opening pages as the first psychoanalytic study of the Crusades.The book is written for both a general readership and an academic audience.The fact that it was published by Karnac Books, one of the premierepublishers of psychoanalytic theory and practice, leads one to think that thepsychoanalytic community is a particularly important audience. The book’sopening chapter, “Us and Them,” introduces psychoanalysis as a theoreticalsource for helping us to think about cultural identity and conflict, particularly“us vs. them” identity conflicts. Following this general foregrounding of theCrusades and psychoanalytic theory, the author turns to how the Crusaders,namely, the “Franks,” created a larger fantasy that drove their violent engagementwith Muslims, one that was tied to a political effort to build a collectiveEuropean identity.Rather surprisingly, the term fantasy is never defined thoroughly, althoughthe author’s central claim is that the Crusades functioned as a way to develop a unified cultural identity for Europe, a project that was itself tied toa fantasy. This project of building a singular Frankish identity, and whatwould eventually come to be a European identity, is the focus of the second,third, and fourth chapters. In them, Falk pays particular attention to the evolutionof the term Saracen, which the Europeans invoked to refer to all ofthe different kinds of Muslims they encountered during the various crusades.The term was initially deployed to specify all Muslims, but by the Third Crusadeit began to connote Eastern European and Baltic Christians as well.Saracens would later be applied to Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians duringthe Baltic crusades, which lasted for four centuries. This word eventuallycame to designate anyone who was not European and Christian, and evenChristians like the Basques who had fought the Franks (p. 132).The etymology of this term, which means “empty of Sarah,” emphasizeshow Hagar is recognized as Ishmael’s mother in the Islamic tradition in distinctionto Christianity. The primary motivation for deploying Saracen wasmeant to resolve this outer collective state project of a unified Europe, as wellas to resolve a far more abstract psychological identity conflict that was feltacross Crusader culture. As Falk states: ...