Resilience and Survival

“The depth and the breadth of these rich creative chapters is remarkable – from evocative clinical descriptions of a master clinician working in the therapeutic alliance with traumatized patients, to neurobiologically-informed models of the cultural transmission of trauma over three generations.” – Allan Schore, author of Right Brain Psychotherapy and The Development of the Unconscious Mind

“Clara Mucci’s new book Resilience and Survival could not be more timely and deeply useful in so many parts of our beleaguered world. Tracing the vulnerability to trauma in individual and social situations, Mucci shows us how powerfully a psychoanalytic lens can offer productive help and understanding … We need this book to understand the costs of collective cruelty and social conflict and to design the reparative projects which are necessary to recovery.” – Adrienne Harris, Ph.D., Supervisor, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Training Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California.

“Interwoven in this masterful work are core insights from John Bowlby, Sandor Ferenczi and many other gifted voices, helping Mucci articulate a hope for the future where connectedness and deep human listening have the power to offset the ongoing disruptive influences of war, adversity, insecurity and extreme trauma. This is a timely book that our world badly needs.” – Howard Steele, Professor of Psychology, The New School, New York and Co-director of the Center for Attachment Research.

“To the ever-intriguing realm of human resilience, Clara Mucci adds a truly distinguished treatise. Deftly synthesizing recent advances in neurophysiology, modern child developmental studies, psychoanalytic object relations theory, and observations from the psycho-political arena, Mucci constructs a sophisticated sociobiological model of hope, faith and grit that makes it possible for us to survive, if not master, the cruelties of fellow human beings and the calamities of nature.” – Salman Akhtar, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College and Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.

“In [Resilience and Survival], Clara Mucci continues her important exploration of trauma and resilience based on both her extensive clinical experience, and her mastery and creative use of the literature, from psychoanalysis, attachment theory, and neurobiology … her deft and original explanation of the intergenerational transmission of trauma lead her to powerful recommendations for how to break the repetitive cycle and heal the traumatized at both the clinical and the societal levels.” – Robert A. Paul, Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emory University and practising psychoanalyst, IPA.

Clara Mucci is a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist practicing in Milan and Pescara, Italy. She is Full Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Chieti, where she taught English Literature and Shakespearean Drama. She received a PhD from Emory University, Atlanta, and was a fellow in 2005-2006 at the Institute of Personality Disorder, New York, directed by Otto Kernberg. The author of several monographies on Shakespeare, Psychoanalysis and Literary Theory, she has taught in London (Westminster College), Atlanta, and New York (Hunter College).

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INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1. Resilience and survival: still nurturing life at the limits of the human

Chapter 2. Unelaborated truths and the rewriting of history as trauma

Chapter 3. Morality and human development after Auschwitz

Chapter 4. First pillar towards resilience: attachment

Chapter 5. Second pillar: connectedness

Chapter 6. Third pillar: memory

Chapter 7. Fourth pillar: testimony

Chapter 8. Fifth pillar: empathic communities in place of narcissism

Chapter 9. Sixth pillar: education and learning in place of artificial intelligence

Chapter 10. Seventh pillar: healing through therapy for individuals and communities

INDEX