Albanian Context – an overview The reality we recognize and accept as such, is not by chance unique, nor is it by chance similar to someone else’s reality. Knowledge and consciousness allow us to discern only a part of it. Individual vital trauma frequently becomes responsible for the quality of the life we have. The concept of social unconscious opens an inclusive perspective in the conceptualization of the individual’s mental health. Individual trauma commences and deepens on the grounds of collective, cultural, social, political, economic, trauma etc. Superposed and intertwined to one another, they can impede or limit the normal personality development of the individual and his own right to live. Today, Albanians are waging a “war” inside themselves to understand their own reality. The constantly changing social, economic and political dynamics, since the collapse of the communist regime, are making more difficult this challenge of their own. International studies on trauma experienced in the former communist countries, refer to the universality of trauma affecting consistently the mental health of individuals, in a long and complex run. The Group Psychoanalysis represents a comprehensive perspective of the cultural matrix of the trauma of the Albanians and an appropriate way of treatment of the clinical symptoms manifested by the Albanian society. The present takes life by the meaning we give to our past, nevertheless, it gives us the opportunity to be free or to remain dependent, as we once were on the communist ideology.
