Old Objects Die Hard: Generational Ruptures

Abstract

This paper looks at the trans-generational transmission of traumatic and problematic attachment issues across four generations of mothers and daughters. The author specifically looks at these histories in both patient and analyst and how they unconsciously dialogue, at times enact, but equally important also communicate on implicit relational attachment levels. Drawing upon attachment literature, work on analytic attunement and the growing body of writings on trans-generational transmissions the author argues that these kinds of activations and engagements have unique capacities for healing on the implicit level in the analytic dyad.