Selected Observations by Dr. Cucliciu

The therapeutic relationship is difficult apparently because of the personal experience, independent of the intellectual and moral quality, of the patient. The main problem Dr. Cucliciu seems to have encountered is related to transference, counter-transference, and projection.

A serious scission seems to have occurred in Romanian society that appears to be torn into two. Each faction is overtly blaming the other: those who plead for a radical change are looked upon with suspicion by the “mob” (“why disturb the status quo?”). The mob is looked upon with contempt by the first group. According to Cucliciu, the to­talitarian regime's indifference to therapy stems from the belief that the mob is insignifi­cant and its opinion unimportant, therefore, it saw no need to bother with its mental health (1994).

In Cucliciu's opinion—and his claims sparked my interest in the therapist's own ac­count which is very revealing about the processes of codifying and thought control at work in Romania—the clinician must believe that the people play a part in history. The belief that the people's opinion does not count is a false belief, which cannot serve as a proper ground for the therapeutic relationship (still very much in tone with communist slogans).

The courageous steps taken by some therapists derive from a belief that “mob” re­sides in anyone and inside the clinician as well. If the health worker himself has not at­tained a sense of stability, he is probably tempted to secure his own position by project­ing onto the patients the deficiencies he disowns and by nurturing a secret wish to see them punished.

The mental worker claimed that the Piteshti phenomenon could be considered a paradigm for a totalitarian experience. He further said that for him too it was only a po­tential experience. Yet the nagging question remained, “How would he have reacted un­der similar circumstances?” He stated that in similar circumstances he might have re­sisted, because “he felt” and “he understood.” He said that this brought him to an im­passe about his capacity to understand properly Mr. B.'s experience.

He initiated a special discussion of the central question about becoming a torturer, the patient's avoidance, the mental worker's avoidance, and understanding.

The total torture, the total father, and the total authority—the Molotov complex (pro­visional name given by the mental worker)—was the continuous symbolic murder of the real father and the destruction of previous values.

The mental worker claimed that a torturer may become an ideal father, a “complete father,” who gives everything, controls everything, even the movement of the eyes, the eating of the food, and the sleep; he takes away and gives ideas, memories, and dreams. Each real father gives something and each son seems unsatisfied, at least in his uncon­scious. Similarly, there is a later ambivalence toward every authority figure, every moral value. Giving something is giving little. Taking everything away is an absolute gift. A total torturer becomes a total father (regression).

This total father, further claimed the health worker, after taking away the faith, plays God. “If someone tried to look at him, the punishment is even harsher,” said Mr. B. Tzurcanu was saying repeatedly: “Don't think you will be killed, but you will die when I want you to die.”

One night Mr.

Even in a case when the prisoner could not be transformed, he would nurture a hid­den admiration for the torturer, and would not be able to rid himself of guilt.

Of significance is also the behavior of the former prisoner after being freed. Some remained strong collaborators of the political police, others tried to reintegrate their self. Even after forty years they did not resolve their dilemma. The therapist tentatively re­ferred to this as to the “Molotov complex” (Molotov, the son of a noble family, became much like these former prisoners)—sort of symbolic murder of the father and a frenetic destruction of all value attached to him.

Attempts to weaken the prisoners' resistance have been made in other prisons as well, but they were much less violent by comparison with the Piteshti experiment. The point is that the entire population living under such totalitarian pressure is going through an analogous experience, but to a lesser degree.

On the whole, only very few former inmates became partisans of the communist re­gimes. The others remained secretly attached to totalitarianism, only because they have lived through it for so long. Totalitarianism reached the elite as well. The background upon which a totalitarian regime is imposed is universal; only the experience itself is par­ticular.