Resilient Memories

"Resilient memories do not bring back suffering; on the contrary, they transform it and use it to produce a novel, an essay or some other from of commitment. This work of representation, which makes the past undergo a metamorphosis and allows us to control our feelings, is very different from the return of the past, which brings back suffering. If we wish to write about the past without bringing back the trauma, we have to integrate the work of memory into a project, an intention or a daydream."

Boris Cyrulnik Talking of Love on the Edge of a Precipice. p149.