Berlin Wall

I was deeply touched reading Donald Winnicott’s essay Berlin Wall. “where if there is no wall there is war”… It makes me think of all the psychological walls we build up. Often hidden behind the defenses, bitterness and anger are our fragilities and inadequacies that were judged, shut down and distances. When we experience and witness the world full of upsets, disappointments, frustrations and pain, the insight and awareness of the painful choice of a ‘wall’ over a ‘war’ offers a hopefully compassionate understanding.

“The boundary between East and West Berlin is a man-built wall which must be ugly, because there is no meaning of the word ‘beauty’ which could be connected with the recognition that here, exactly at this spot, is the place where if there is no wall there is war. But the positive thing in favour of the Berlin Wall is the acknowledgement of the fact that human nature is not capable of a totality except in terms of the depressed mood and of the acknowledgement of conflict in the inner psychic reality of the individual, and of a willingness to postpone resolution of the conflict and to tolerate the uncomfortableness of the mood. Naturally, in terms of time one can see that there is an alternation between resolution of the conflict, which means war or conquest, and toleration of the state of strain, which means acceptance of a Berlin Wall or its equivalent.”