ABSTRACT
Relational thought entwines trauma with the social-ethical turn, trans-generational transmission, political/cultural critique, and social justice. We also require a theory of traumatic resilience, but that theory is largely absent. This absence stands in contrast to non-analytic trauma therapies that emphasize resilience. Developing a theory of resilience requires broadening the relational field of mentalization, care, and engagement. Grand argues that, in psychoanalysis, our vision of relational resources has been constricted by problematic deep structures in our discipline: the nuclear analytic family; the social isolated ‘maternal function’ that underwrites witnessing and mentalization; the developmental tilt written into the witnessing dyad. These structures are both healing and subversive: they can deplete the mutual relational resources that we valorize, co-constructing the ‘dead mother’ of trauma, and sustaining us in social impotence and isolation. All of this undermines our theoretical perception of, and engagement with, resilience. The author calls for a re-examination of the analytic family, and for a broadened theory of relational witnessing that re-writes these structures. This would release us to think, theoretically, about resilience.
