If I forget you, Jerusalem

Based on clinical examples, the author shows how certain unconscious contents related to the problematics of exile are transmitted from one generation to the next. Allegiance to the wounds and suffering of earlier generations acts on the unconscious as an inhibition of energy in which instinctive and archetypal are mingled. As a result, the subject is locked into illusion and incest. The wounded self can return to its true function only by abandoning the imaginary contents related to the mythical homeland. Although this dream country was able to sustain generations of forebears who did experience exile, it constitutes a barrier to personal evolution today.