ABSTRACT
This is the story of a national divorce. Of the impact of a totalitarian anti-capitalist regime, which counterintuitively generated a wave of innovative, self-interested, entrepreneurial business activities that rendered some of those in power rich, whilst those they dominated remained trapped in an oppressive system many of them philosophically disagreed with. When Communism fell it unleashed a tide of euphoria, access to new ideas and an apparent release from oppression. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the shift to freedom caused new, alternative corruptive behaviours to develop. The author Rachel Ellison interviews Renata who, as a Czech teenager at the time of the Velvet Revolution, witnessed the psychological effects on human behaviour under Communism and then post-Communism. Taking a psychoanalytic approach, Renata delves beneath the surface to explain and explore themes such as separation, splitting, victimhood, transactional positions related to power – ‘the adult’ versus ‘the child’, defection, trust, secrecy, the myth of equality, hypocrisy, perceived control centres and the legacy, for some, of depression and apathy.
