The author starts with the clinical observation that certain patients with a traumatic developmental history do surprisingly well in analysis and others with a favorable history do surprisingly poorly, and goes on to elaborate an explanation that goes beyond static opposition between constitutional and dynamic factors. She expands Waddington's biological principle of self-righting, the ability to keep development on track in the face of traumatic disruptions, external and internal, to the psychological sphere. Psychological resilience or self-righting contributes to "motherability" early in development, even in the face of less than optimal nurturing, and to analyzability in adulthood. The author illustrates this principle first by contrasting a resilient infant with a less resilient one. She then describes the analysis of a nonresilient adult patient who was unable to tolerate the expectable disruptions in the analytic relationship, and felt compelled to terminate the analysis early in the process.