Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Social Trauma – An Interdisciplinary Textbook pp 209–215Cite as

Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

Trans-generational trauma transmission has been studied and researched in psychoanalysis and clinical psychology throughout the last decades. Clinical and epidemiological studies show that children of parents who experienced trauma are at risk of developing emotional, cognitive, and behavioral problems including post-traumatic symptoms, depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, and conduct disorders (see Aviad-Wilchek & Cohenca, 2013; Dekel, 2008; Felsen, 1998; Scharf, 2007; Schwab, 2010), especially if the traumatic experience is connected to social trauma (see Hamburger, 2020, this volume).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abraham, N., & Torok, M. (1975). The Shell and the kernel: Renewals of psychoanalysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alpert, J. (2017). Enduring mothers, enduring knowledge: on rape and history. In: The wounds of history: repair and resilience in the trans-generational transmission of trauma. Eds: Salberg, J. and Grand, S. New York: Routledge. 2017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Apprey, M. (2003). Repairing history: Reworking transgenerational trauma. In D. Moss (Ed.), Hating in the first person plural (pp. 3–29). New York: Other Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aviad-Wilchek, Y., & Cohenca, D. (2013). The effects of the survival characteristics of parent holocaust survivors on offsprings’ anxiety and depression symptoms. Israel Journal of Psychiatry, 50(3), 210–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beebe, B., & Lachmann, F. M. (2013). The origins of attachment: Infant research and adult treatment. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bergmann, M., & Jucovy, M. (1982). Generations of the holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowers, M. E., & Yehuda, R. (2016). Intergenerational transmission of stress in humans. Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, 41, 232–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davoine, F., & Gaudillière, J. M. (2004). History beyond trauma: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one cannot stay silent. New York: Other Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faimberg, H. (2005). The telescoping of generations: Listening to the narcissistic links between generations. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Felman, S., & Laub, D. (1992). Testimony: Crises of witnessing in literature, psychoanalysis, and history. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felsen, I. (1998). Transgenerational transmission of effects of the holocaust: The north American research perspective. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 43–68). New York: Plenum Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Fonagy, P. (1999). The transgenerational transmission of holocaust trauma: Lessons learned from the analysis of an adolescent with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Attachment & Human Development, 1(1), 92–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616739900134041

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant–mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 14, 387–421.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frie, R. (2011). Irreducible cultural contexts: German-Jewish experience, identity and trauma in a bilingual analysis. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 6, 136–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fromm, M. G. (Ed.). (2012). Lost in transmission: Studies of trauma across generations (pp. 5–19). London: Karnac.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerson, S. (2009). When the third is dead: Memory, mourning, and witnessing in the aftermath of the holocaust. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90, 1341–1357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grand, S. (2000). The reproduction of evil. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grand, S. (2010). The hero in the mirror: From fear to fortitude. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grand, S. (2014). Skin memories: On race, love and loss. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 19(3), 232–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grand, S. (2018). The other within: White shame, native-American genocide. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 54(1), 84–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grand, S., & Salberg, J. (Eds.). (2015). The evolution of witnessing: Emergent relational trends in holocaust studies [Special issue]. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 51(2), 185–194.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grubrich-Simitis, I. (1984). From concretism to metaphor: Thoughts on some theoretical and technical aspects of the psychoanalytic work with children of holocaust survivors. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 39, 301–319.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gump, J. (2010). Reality matters: The shadow of trauma on African-American subjectivity. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 27(1), 42–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guralnik, O. (2014). The dead baby. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 24(2), 129–145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamburger, A. (2020). Social trauma as a bridging concept. In A. Hamburger, C. Hancheva & V. Volkan (Eds.), Social Trauma. An Interdisciplinary Textbook. (pp. 3–16). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, J. (1999). Ghosts in the consulting room. Attachment & Human Development, 1(1), 115–131.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, S. (2013). Child survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and trauma-related affect. Journal of Social Issues, 69, 92–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kestenberg, J. S. (1980). Psychoanalyses of children of survivors from the holocaust: Case presentations and assessment. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 28, 775–804.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krystal, H. (1985). Trauma and the stimulus barrier. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 5(1), 131–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laub, D. (1993). Knowing and not knowing massive psychic trauma. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 74, 287–302.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laub, D. (1998). The empty circle: Children of survivors and the limits of reconstruction. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 46(2), 507–529.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laub, D., & Hamburger, A. (Eds.). (2017). Psychoanalysis and holocaust testimony: Unwanted memories of social trauma. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Layton, L. (2009). Who’s responsible? Our mutual implication in each other’s suffering. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 19(2), 105–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Layton, L. (2015). Beyond sameness and difference: Normative unconscious process and our mutual implication in each other’s suffering. In D. Goodman & M. Freeman (Eds.), Psychology and the other (pp. 168–188). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Leary, K. (1997). Passing, posing and ‘keeping it real’. Constellations, 6(1), 85–96.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lyons-Ruth, K. (2003). Dissociation and the parent-infant dialogue: A longitudinal perspective from attachment research. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 51, 883–911.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meares, R. (1998). The self in conversation: On narratives, chronicles, and scripts. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 8, 875–891.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, J. (2003). Siblings, sex and violence. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Orange, D. (2016). Nourishing the inner life of clinicians and humanitarians: The ethical turn in psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ornstein, A. (1985). Survival and recovery. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 5(1), 99–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perroud, N., Rutembesa, E., Paoloni-Giacobino, A., Mutabaruka, J., Mutesa, L., Stenz, L., … Karege, F. (2014). The Tutsi genocide and transgenerational transmission of maternal stress: Epigenetics and biology of the HPA axis. World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, 15(4), 334–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reis, B. (2015). How deep the sky: Discussion of special issue on the evolution of witnessing: Emergent relational trends in holocaust studies. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 51(2), 333–347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richman, S. (2006). Finding one’s voice: Transforming trauma into autobiographical narrative. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 42, 639–650.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salberg, J. (2015). The texture of traumatic attachment: Presence and ghostly absence in trans-generational transmissions. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 84(1), 21–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salberg, J., & Grand, S. (2017). The wounds of history: Repair and resilience in the transgenerational transmission of trauma. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scharf, M. (2007). Long-term effects of trauma: Psychological functioning of the second and third generation of holocaust survivors. Development and Psychopathology, 19, 603–622.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, D. (2003). Intergenerational communication of maternal violent trauma: Understanding the interplay of reflective functioning and posttraumatic psychopathology. In S. Coates, J. Rosenthal, & D. Schechter (Eds.), September 11: Trauma and human bonds (pp. 115–142). Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schechter, D. (2017). On traumatically skewed Intersubjectivity. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 37(4), 251–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwab, G. (2010). Haunting legacies. Violent histories and transgenerational trauma. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Bierer, L. M., Bader, H. N., Klengel, T., Holsboer, F., & Binder, E. B. (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Lehmer, A., Desarnaud, F., Bader, H. N., Makotkine, I., … Meaney, M. J. (2014). Influences of maternal and paternal PTSD on epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene in holocaust survivor offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry, 171(8), 872–880.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York, NY, USA

    Sue Grand & Jill Salberg

Authors
  1. Sue Grand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jill Salberg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. International Psychoanalytic University Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Hamburger

  2. Department of Psychology, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Camellia Hancheva

  3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Vamık D. Volkan

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Grand, S., Salberg, J. (2021). Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma. In: Hamburger, A., Hancheva, C., Volkan, V.D. (eds) Social Trauma – An Interdisciplinary Textbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47817-9_22

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation