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This book is an ambitious attempt to discuss an important topic that is particularly meaningful for this reviewer. As a Holocaust survivor and child of survivors, and as a clinical practitioner specializing in trauma, I was especially interested in Clara Mucci's account of individual and collective trauma, and I looked forward to a new perspective on this widely researched topic.
Mucci comes from an academic background, having been an English literature professor for many years. She recently trained in psychoanalysis in the United States and currently practices psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapy in Italy. Unfortunately, my hope for a new perspective was not realized, however; Mucci's theoretical stance on catastrophic collective trauma, as presented here, is based on the stale, one-dimensional, and stereotypical view of survivors perpetuated in much of the contemporary trauma literature.
Mucci focuses on human-caused trauma—specifically, early relational trauma, including child abuse, and massive social trauma as encountered in genocide. In both these areas, Mucci's interest is in reviewing the trauma literature and formulating a theory of the effects of trauma, its intergenerational transmission, and identifying the psychoanalytic interventions that are most effective for the treatment of survivors. Her ambitious goal is to present an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, and to integrate neurobiology and attachment theory in a way that broadens our understanding of trauma and helps us comprehend its complicated long-term effects.
The book consists of four lengthy chapters, each addressing an aspect of individual and collective trauma. These four chapters include: an exploration of the aftereffects of man-made trauma, a review of psychoanalytic approaches to these types of traumas, an analysis of trauma transmission to the second and third generations, and a final section that focuses on the possibility for going beyond trauma. The first three