This paper attempts to develop a psychoanalytic perspective on maternal resilience. It argues that notions of resilience have been largely focused on the development of resilience in children, with the mother being viewed as a key figure in understanding its success or failure. However, the development of maternal resilience -the capacity for mothers to survive the vicissitudes of the parenting experience itself -has received less attention, occluding an important aspect of maternal subjectivity. Drawing on recent work on maternal ambivalence, this paper explores the relation between ambivalence and resilience, and provides clinical material from a two-year slow-open analytic group for mothers at the Maya Centre to illustrate our view that maternal resilience may usefully describe the aspect of ambivalence that entails bearing and accepting ourselves as mothers as well as our ambivalent feelings about our children.
Social dreaming is presented as a method to explore the unconscious dimension of the social world. The theoretical position of social dreaming and its historical development is described. Two examples are given for the practical application of social dreaming, a professional meeting of psychotherapists and an experiential workshop dealing with the aftermath of trauma. It is suggested that social dreaming is complementary to individual dreaming and offers insights and explanations, as well as guidance on various levels for applications in clinical, organizational, institutional and social settings.
This paper presents some thoughts about working clinically with mothers who have been sexually abused in childhood. We review the research literature that indicates that survivor mothers face interpersonal difficulties relating to their children, and, in the light of this research, suggest that survivor mothers may benefit from a therapeutic service that is specifically designed to meet their needs. We draw on recent explorations of transgenerational processes in the transmission of trauma to present an understanding of the psychodynamics involved in the difficulties survivors have with mothering. This understanding informs the design and implementation of groups for survivor mothers at the Maya Centre, a psychodynamic counselling centre for women living in poverty in the London Borough of Islington. Clinical examples taken from three short-term therapeutic groups are presented and discussed.
This paper describes observations and experiences gathered whilst conducting group therapy with trainees in analytical psychology in Poland. The challenges and conflicts around language and translation reflect challenges common to analysis everywhere: accuracy of interpretation, agreements on permission to interpret and the acceptability of interpretation. The way in which archetypal patterns developed and matured suggests this approach to work with trainees may have wider application.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.