Intergenerational trauma was first recognized in the children of Holocaust survivors. This field of research is relatively young, but has been expanded since the mid-2000s. 4.5 Native/Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.Descendants of survivors may experience extreme stress, leading to a variety of other consequences. This is a novel area of research and given the complexity of issues surrounding trauma and the human experience, the relative contributions of epigenetics, cultural, and social factors will be challenging to elucidate.Įxamples of this include collective trauma experienced by descendants of the Atlantic slave trade segregation and Jim Crow laws in the United States apartheid in South Africa the colonization of African countries, Jewish Holocaust survivors and other members of the Jewish community at the time by the First Peoples of Canada during the Canadian Indian residential school system and in Australia, the Stolen Generations and other hardships inflicted on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The mechanism for transmission of trauma may be via epigenetic modifications introduced by stress. For example, survivors of individual child abuse and both direct survivors of the collective trauma and members of subsequent generations individually may develop complex post-traumatic stress disorder. It can also be applied to single families or individual parent–child dyads. Transgenerational trauma can be a collective experience that affects groups of people who share a cultural identity (e.g., ethnicity, nationality, or religious identity). For example, if Jewish people experience extreme stress or practice survivalism out of fear of another Holocaust, despite being born after the Holocaust, then they are experiencing transgenerational trauma.
When this collective trauma affects subsequent generations, it is called transgenerational trauma.
For example, collective trauma was experienced by Jewish Holocaust survivors and other members of the Jewish community at the time, and by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada during the Canadian Indian residential school system. Exposure includes when the offspring is in utero.Ĭollective trauma is when psychological trauma experienced by communities and identity groups is carried on as part of the group's collective memory and shared sense of identity.
There are two types of transmission: intergenerational transmission whereby epigenetic changes are passed down from the directly traumatized generation to their offspring, and transgenerational transmission when the offspring then pass it down to their offspring who have not been exposed to the initial traumatic event. Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group.
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