2024-01-12 16:33:20
What is transgenerational trauma?
Transgenerational trauma is a trauma that we inherited : it is transmitted by the one who experienced it to future generations. This term is used in people who have psychological injuries even though they have not themselves experienced the trauma causing these after-effects.
Transgenerational trauma vs. secondary trauma
When trauma is transmitted to the generation directly following the one who experienced it, we speak of secondary trauma. Beyond that, we are talking about transgenerational trauma.
Transgenerational trauma and intergenerational trauma
If transgenerational trauma is transmitted through generations who did not know each other during their lifetime, intergenerational trauma concerns individuals who knew each other during their lifetime.
It was in the 1960s, in connection with the upheavals and psychological distress affecting the descendants (and their descendants) of people who survived the Holocaust and the Nazi regime, that we began to be interested in traumatic experiences transgenerational and, more broadly, to psychogenealogy – or transgenerational psychology – a science which is interested in understanding the history of the family, introduced by the French psychologist and psychotherapist Anne Ancelin Schützenberger. Thus, thetransgenerational analysis makes the link between the traumas and unsaid things experienced by an individual’s ancestors and their repercussions on them, in the form of psychological and/or physical disorders.
The subject of transgenerational trauma being relatively recent, scientific studies are lacking but there are interesting studies such as the work carried out by Rachel Yehuda, psychologist and director of the Division of Traumatic Stress Studies at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. York, and his team having demonstrated that the descendants of people who survived the Holocaust present a greater risk of develop depression or a syndrome of post-traumatic stress (SSPT) (Influences of Maternal and Paternal PTSD on Epigenetic Regulation of the Glucocorticoid Receptor Gene in Holocaust Survivor OffspringRachel Yehuda & Cie).
Transgenerational trauma: what are the symptoms
THE symptoms of transgenerational trauma vary from one individual to another. They can be psychological as well as physical:
Anxiety disorders, Depressed mood, Reduced self-confidence, Sleep problems, night terrors, Hypervigilance, Unexplained body pain, Development of addiction and dependence…
Sometimes, you just need to take a close look at your family’s history to detect traces of potential trauma of this type. It is buried in repeated conflicts, taboos, unsaid things and even in frequent illnesses within the family circle… However, a family secret does not systematically predispose to the appearance of transgenerational trauma.
Experts suggest that trauma is passed down from generation to generation since it has not been definitively processed. To treat it, it is necessary to identify its origin… but not all stories are good to be brought to light!
To help people affected by this type of trauma, there is a suitable treatment: transgenerational psychoanalysis. This is a therapy which will encourage the patient to seek the origin of their psychological disorders in family history. This often involves digging for information from your family, particularly your parents and grandparents.
Obviously, in many cases the symptoms have no connection with the patient’s past.
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