Traumatizing Societies and Resilient Children : A Personal Reflection

What factors contribute to building resiliency? This paper discusses the salient literature on childhood trauma and severe trauma including resiliency. The discussion is interwoven with the author’s own experience growing up in a totalitarian setting, as a second-generation child of survivors of World War II. Chief protective factors building resiliency include positive identifications and close family ties. Her later mastery, through becoming an analyst, was a key sublimation.