Resilience and Survival: Understanding and Healing Intergenerational Trauma presents a unique combination of resilience theory with attachment, psychoanalysis, and developmental neuroscience, with a mind–body–brain developmental approach to therapy. It shows how resilience can be reinforced and structured to create stronger individuals and societies, vis-à-vis increasing traumatic and stressful life circumstances. The author investigates several human practices, processes, and features that aid our capacity to resist, combat, adapt to or counter extreme traumatisation. These features and capabilities come into play at the interface between vulnerability and resilience, leading to a deeper understanding of the mechanism of resilience itself.
Each chapter illustrates the components necessary to achieve resilience: attachment, connectedness, memory, testimony, education, and the development and practice of artistic and creative activities. The book also explores the positive effects of moral commitment, empathy, and altruism, and psychodynamic intergenerational therapy on trauma, showing that acts and feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and an appreciation for and use of higher order symbolic structures, such as art and creativity, together contribute to building and reinforcing resilience and social solidarity.
Clara Mucci is a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist practising 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 monographs on Shakespeare, psychoanalysis, and literary theory, she has taught in London (Westminster College), Atlanta, and New York (Hunter College).
Allan Schore, author of Right Brain Psychotherapy and The Development of the Unconscious Mind –
‘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.’
Adrienne Harris, PhD, Supervisor, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Training Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California –
‘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.’
Howard Steele, Professor of Psychology, The New School, New York and Co-director of the Center for Attachment Research –
‘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.’
Salman Akhtar, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College and Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia –
‘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…’
Robert A. Paul, Professor of Anthropology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Emory University and practising psychoanalyst, IPA –
‘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.’
Ben Scanlan, UKCP-accredited existential phenomenological psychotherapist and integrative supervisor, New Psychotherapist, Winter 2022/23 –
‘I felt seen in the last chapter, where Mucci emphasised the more practical concerns of working with trauma, informed with a link to the history and development of analytic thought from Freud to the present day. […] This book challenged some of my thinking, opened up a different perspective and at times had me nodding my head in agreement. In this regard, the book ticks a lot of boxes and is a worthwhile investment of time, energy and money.’
David Curl, counsellor in private practice, BACP Therapy Today, 34:3, 2023 –
‘A rich thought-provoking elaboration of how attachment theory, object relations and psychoanalytic theory can support a fuller understanding of ‘traumas of human agency’. […] I would recommend this as a book which [..] integrates several crucial perspectives, advocating powerfully for the perspectives that resilience is ‘not a trait but a process’.’
Vittorio Gonella, Psychotherapist, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2023, 83, (429–433) –
‘Clara Mucci is a guide who for years has not only been an expert and passionate about the psychoanalytic clinical work; she is also prepared and up-to-date on the scientific research that bridges psychoanalysis and neurology; and, above all, she is a tireless writer, eager to share her knowledge with the reader. […] It is a book, in my opinion, accessible to colleagues even if they do not possess expert knowledge in the various fields discussed. […] The pages of the book are inspired by Clara Mucci’s passionate prose and by her multidisciplinary experience; we can see her hope for the future of mankind, with connectedness and resilience to fight against the toxic effects of trauma.’
Carlo Bonomi, PhD, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2023, 83, (110–113) –
‘Clara Mucci is a well-known and prolific author who has extensively published in the fields of both literature and clinical psychology. Her profile is unique, embracing different but also complementary competencies. […] Resilience and Survival provides the reader not only with an enormous and updated corpus of researches, but also with lively, systematic and passionate ideas on the factors that prevent and combat extreme psychological trauma.’