Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma

Transgenerational trauma transmission is a relatively recent focus within the field of traumatic stress. The transgenerational process is viewed through a social-work, family-systems perspective that suggests what happens in one generation will affect the next. Transgenerational trauma transmission suggests contagion, repeated and observable patterns within the family. These patterns of trauma-induced behaviors theoretically explain roles and values adopted by family members as well as sources of vulnerability and resilience. This entry reviews the background and models of transgenerational transmission of trauma.

This phenomenon was first observed by trauma-focused therapists who were concerned about the number of children descended from survivors of the Shoah, or Holocaust, in Canada, the United States, and Israel far removed from the concentration camps and Nazi persecution. Additional research from the human migration literature, Native American genocide, and grandchildren of Vietnam veterans validated that transgenerational trauma transmission is manifested in the children of traumatized groups of people, and scholars observed the effects of significant events within family structures and the heterogeneity of symptoms in the offspring of survivors. What intrigued clinicians was that the trauma was observed in children who were born sometimes even [Page 672]two generations or more after the event. Works by Rachel Yehuda and Yael Danieli attempt to describe the behaviors in the second and third generations as adaptations rather than a pathological response to trauma. The normal transmission of the family values and beliefs is altered by these severe traumatic events, which alters the trajectory of the family. Subsequent transmissions to the next generation are affected by the family experience of the Holocaust, combat, slavery, or genocide. Long-term effects of transgenerational trauma are now well documented. In 1980, the evolving research explicated the transgenerational syndrome often described as a “survivor syndrome,” and it was subsumed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition (DSM-III), under post-traumatic stress disorder. As the publication of DSM-V looms, the identification and categorization of a transgenerational trauma disorder have yet to occur. Transgenerational trauma remains a secondary aspect of PTSD and similar to constructs such as secondary traumatic stress and vicarious traumatization.