Vamik D. Volkan papers

Dr. Vamik D. Volkan (born 1932 in Cyprus) is an emeritus professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He is also the Senior Erik Scholar at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, an emeritus training and supervising analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Washington, D.C., and a past president of both the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) and the Virginia Psychoanalytic Society. In 1987, he... founded the Center for the Study of Mind and Human Interaction (CSMHI) at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and directed the Center until 2002. Throughout the 1990s he served as a member of the Carter Center's International Negotiation Network, headed by former President Jimmy Carter. Currently, he is the president of the American College of Psychoanalysts (ACOPSA), (2009-2010).

For 30 years, Dr. Volkan has been dedicated to carrying out projects in various troubled spots in the world, especially in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union including Greece, Turkey, Estonia, Georgia and Kuwait. He endeavored to bring together ethnic groups in conflict for dialogue while developing new psychopolitical theories about large-group behavior in times of peace and war. Currently, Dr. Volkan is involved in the Islamic-Western Dialogue and PAKH project (Psychotherapeutical Working Group for Persons Affected by the Holocaust). Dr. Volkan published more than 50 books and 400 scientific papers and book chapters, and his work has been translated into many languages. Dr. Volkan was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.