Psychopathology: Theory and Practice

Past generations, trauma, loss and the modes of psychic transmission

Clara Mucci asserts, “We don’t just get a patient. We get someone who is the last part of a chain of family heritage.” This presentation examines the paths that intergenerational trauma takes as it transmits from one generation to the next. Within a framework of psychoanalytic and attachment theory, Clara Mucci elaborates how early relational trauma in the form of disorganized attachment is the most damaging means via which trauma from one generation passes to the next. This is explained by the primary care-giver’s incapacity to offer the emotional regulation that is necessary for healthy development. Furthermore, a parent who has adopted the defense of dissociation is likely to have a dissociating child. She proposes that secure attachment mediates against future traumatic effects, by enabling one to negotiate loss and process future traumas. Therapy for intergenerational trauma, she suggests, occurs in the form of enactment, where the trauma of past generations may become expressed. Clinical and theoretic material is drawn upon from her own practice and also from such authors as Giovanni Liotti, Dori Laub, Ilany Kogan, Philip Bromberg and Allan Schore.