When Victims Become Aggressors Understanding how collective wounds shape national behaviour.

In both psychology and geopolitics, there's a powerful and often unsettling pattern: victims can become oppressors. This is not due to moral failure alone but often stems from deep psychological forces embedded in individual and collective trauma. What starts as a defensive posture can turn into domination, all in the name of survival.

This dynamic is not exclusive to nations. In individuals, we see a similar phenomenon: those who suffer abuse or humiliation can, without healing, become perpetrators themselves. The abused child becomes the controlling adult. The bullied teen becomes the tyrannical boss. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance, is often cited as exhibiting traits of narcissistic behaviour shaped by childhood insecurity and emotional neglect, using dominance, humiliation, and projection as defence mechanisms. The need to be seen as a "winner" at all costs echoes the psychological imperative to never again feel small, powerless, or dismissed.

When unhealed trauma is in the driving seat (whether in an individual or a nation) it distorts perception and justifies control.

Why Trauma Can Turn a Nation from Victim into Aggressor

1. Control as a Psychological Imperative

When a group has experienced powerlessness or existential threat, there is a strong drive to ensure that vulnerability is never felt again. This often translates into control: of land, narratives, people. What may begin as legitimate defence transforms into a compulsion for dominance.

2. Collective Narcissism

Narcissism is often misunderstood as excessive self-love, but it is, at root, a defence against deep shame. Groups who define themselves primarily as victims often construct a narrative of moral superiority. Any criticism is then not just disagreement, but a perceived attack on their right to exist.

3. Projection and Enemy-Making

Psychologically, it's easier to project our unacceptable traits (fear, aggression, prejudice) onto another group. That group then becomes the scapegoat, the threat, the justification for repression. The victim cannot bear to see the shadow within, so it must be fought externally.

4. Trauma Repetition and Moral Innocence

In unprocessed trauma, there is a compulsive need to repeat the scenario, but this time with a different outcome. By becoming the one in control, the group feels it is finally 'winning' or 'restoring justice'. However, this often comes at the cost of becoming an aggressor.

🇮🇱 Israel: A Case in Point

Israel's national psyche was forged in the crucible of historical trauma: the Holocaust, pogroms, and centuries of marginalisation. The phrase "Never Again" was not just a slogan, but a psychological contract. The state would be strong, self-reliant, and never at the mercy of others.

But trauma, if unhealed, doesn't just disappear. It mutates.

• Military strength becomes moral identity.

• Security becomes dominance.

• Every threat is filtered through a lens of past annihilation.

Palestinians, in this psychological framework, become not just political adversaries but existential threats. The trauma narrative allows Israel to justify extreme policies while maintaining a sense of victimhood. This is the victim-becomes-aggressor pattern in action.

And yet, the irony is stark: the very means used to preserve identity risk eroding the moral foundations upon which the state was built.

The Perpetual Conflict Loop

1. A traumatised group uses power to secure itself.

2. That power causes harm to another group.

3. The harmed group resists.

4. Resistance is interpreted as confirmation of the original threat.

5. Justification for further control ensues.

Each side sees itself as the victim, morally justified in its actions. And unless trauma is addressed at its root, the cycle continues.

Towards a Different Future: Why Breaking the Cycle Is So Hard

The transition from victim to aggressor isn’t inevitable,  but it is very difficult to interrupt. It requires more than historical memory, political compromise, or peace summits. It demands a shift in the deeper architecture of identity, power, and leadership.

1. Memorials Aren’t Enough

Many nations (like Israel) have invested heavily in memorials, education, and national remembrance. But these gestures alone don’t heal trauma. In fact, when trauma is continually rehearsed without integration, it can entrench a narrative of perpetual threat. Remembrance becomes not a step towards healing, but a justification for vigilance and militarised defence.

2. The Role of Leadership: Trauma as Strategy

Unhealed trauma in a population becomes dangerous when it is exploited—intentionally or unconsciously—by leaders. Rather than guiding society toward healing, some use national pain as a unifying narrative to justify hardline policies or to silence dissent. The rhetoric of threat and survival becomes a political strategy. This dynamic can be found in both democratic and authoritarian systems, where wounded identity is used to mobilise fear, loyalty, and aggression. In such cases, trauma isn’t healed; it’s instrumentalised.

3. Reclaiming the Shadow Isn’t a PR Exercise

Facing a nation’s darker impulses (aggression, domination, denial) requires honesty that few political systems reward. It’s not about issuing apologies or symbolic gestures but building the psychological muscle to say: we too can do harm. Until that shadow is acknowledged, it will be projected outward onto others, endlessly.

4. What Real Moral Maturity Looks Like

The leaders who can interrupt this cycle are not necessarily the most charismatic or forceful. They are those capable of holding pain without needing to retaliate; who can see complexity rather than flattening everything into friend/enemy binaries. Moral maturity means resisting the pull to use one’s own wounds as a weapon. It means choosing integration over vengeance, and justice over self-righteousness. Emotional Intelligence is fundamental.

Leadership Beyond Power: A Call for Psychological Sophistication

At every level (whether running a nation, a movement, or a team) leaders shape culture by how they hold and respond to pain. True leadership in times of conflict isn’t about strength alone, but about sophistication: the ability to recognise when historical or personal wounds are driving present behaviour, and the courage to break that loop.

Leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu have drawn heavily on collective Jewish trauma—especially the Holocaust and centuries of persecution—to frame current threats as existential, often justifying disproportionate force in the name of survival. Donald Trump, by contrast, exemplifies how personal trauma 8narcissistic injury, insecurity, and the fear of humiliation) can be projected outward, turning leadership into a theatre of grievance and dominance.

But perhaps the hardest truth is this: we elect these leaders. Parties enable them. Populations embrace them, not always because of their policies, but because they mirror something unresolved in the collective psyche: a craving for control, a desire to be avenged, or a fear of appearing weak. The current political trend towards strong people, charisma over character, presidential “fixers”—isn’t just about governance. It’s a psychological defence against uncertainty and pain.

In all these cases, unprocessed trauma (personal or collective) becomes the fuel for aggression, polarisation, and control. In a geopolitical landscape increasingly shaped by trauma-driven narratives, we need leaders who can metabolisepain rather than amplify it - who understand that unhealed wounds don’t just haunt the past, they shape the future.

Healing begins not just when leaders listen to fear instead of weaponising it, but when we stop mistaking dominance for safety. Until then, even democracy risks becoming a mirror of our fears rather than a path toward wisdom.