Intergenerational Trauma: The Ghosts of Times Past (2 page)

Numerous research articles have explored how the children of holocaust survivors presented PTSD-like symptoms even though they had never experienced trauma. In the research, the children were found to be hyper-vigilant and untrusting of others. The children also reported that they felt different from their peers and realized that they acted differently also. The research did address that the populations that were looked at were clinical populations that had come to the attention of mental health professionals by self-referral. Additionally, due to the nature of the holocaust, random sampling would be impossibility preventing a true experiment.  

Studies have been completed to address a variety of theories that has been used to explain the appearance of the symptoms in subsequent generations. The secondary PTSD could be explained as a symptom of deep understanding of the following generation about the prior generation in an attempt to understand their parents’ struggles during the World War II era. The symptoms were also explored as being the product of storytelling compounded by silent periods. An evolutionary approach to the behaviors poses that the symptoms serve to be the younger generations’ reactions to the parents’ attempts at teaching their children how to survive in times of persecution. This could be seen as an explanation based the concept of individuals’ attempting to aid their genes in being based on through time. To promote the chances of lineage continuation, the survivors of the older generation develop attachment-styles and behave in ways that aide their children’s survival based on the experiences of their lives when they were younger.  

Dr.  
Baranowsky, founder and director of Traumatology Institute in Toronto, Canada,
proposed that the transmission of trauma between generations could serve to set the expectations of clinicians treating PTSD sufferers. In light of such research, one should also look for symptoms of intergenerational transmission in the children of clients suffering from PTSD. The research does not provide a likelihood of transmission due to the claimed impossibility of designing such an experiment.  

Dr. Dani Rowland-Klein and Rosemary Dunlop performed groundbreaking research on the effect of trauma on the descendants of Holocaust survivors. They interviewed six individuals who were children of Holocaust survivors to determine what themes were present across the individuals that would have contributed to transmission of trauma across generations. The research revealed a number of themes that were consistent across the sample. First, the sample displayed a number of themes revolving around their parents’ style of parenting. These themes were more pronounced and notable in the comparison of their parents to other parents. Additionally, concerns about overprotection and issues with separation were commonly seen as themes in parenting. The children also heavily identified with their parent’s experiences in a subjective understanding of what the concentration camp experience was like for their parents. An additional finding in the study was that the second generation had showed a heightened state of awareness about the parents’ status as being Holocaust survivors through both overt and covert understandings of their parents’ story of survival. As a result of these factors, a message of mistrust and fear were transmitted to the second generation through messages about a need to survive in dangerous situations. 

The researchers utilized an interview format to conduct the study with the small sample size that consisted of only females, which was a weakness of the study. Despite the weaknesses of the study, it did present a detailed look at the individual cases and the emerging themes that appeared across the individuals. The sample was a non-clinical sample, which serves to be unique because the individuals reported several pathological symptoms associated with PTSD such as hyper-vigilance, mistrust, nightmares, and persistent fears. Researchers also served to divide the methods of transmission into two categories that include conscious and unconscious transmissions of trauma. In making this distinction between the methods of transmission, the study presented the behaviors of the parents as being a dynamic interaction between the types of forces that magnifies the effect of transmission of trauma across generations.   

              With a wide array of research regarding Holocaust survivors and their children, studies have also been conducted regarding the grandchildren of holocaust. Throughout these studies, several themes have emerged regarding the effects of the transmission. Typically, the transmission is typically viewed as being either an impact of nature or nurture. When viewing the transmission through the lens of nature or biological transmission, the field of study is referred to as epigenetics. When one first hears this notion, one may say that this sounds like genes trying to explain everything. It is a little more complex than that. The genetic code does not simply change as a result of survival of the fittest or the weeding out of undesirable survival traits as seen in traditional evolutionary theory.              

              Holocaust survivors experienced in extreme trauma in concentration camps and the ghettos of Europe. In response to this stress, the body produces certain neurotransmitters and hormones to aid in survival. These chemical messengers are essential for survival and stress reduction. A notable effect is the reduced levels of cortisol in the children of Holocaust survivors. Most people are aware that high levels of cortisol have impacts an individual’s health by tearing down muscle tissue, slowing down healing processes, and impacting cell regeneration. However, cortisol is essential to survival. You cannot live without cortisol. One might expect to find high levels of cortisol in the Holocaust survivors and their children. To the contrary, it is the opposite. Children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors have actually shown drastically lower than normal levels of cortisol. When cortisol levels are low, the individual is at a higher risk for anxiety disorders and will have difficulty coping with stress. This phenomena predisposes the children of Holocaust survivors to not only Generalized Anxiety Disorder but also sets the stage for PTSD-like symptoms that are indicative of intergenerational
trauma.

              Epigenetic research explains that these low cortisol levels in the children and grandchildren can be explained by the experiences and the survival reactions of individuals during the Holocaust. In the concentration camps, it was fear clear that the inmates were starved. From the photographs, videos, and evidence, this is very clear. The survivors looked like “walking skeletons.” Of the atrocities committed, the starvation of individuals is often the first thing that one notices. In order to stay alive in such extremes, the human body goes into survival mode. As a response to starvation, the body produces reduces enzyme activity. This reduction keeps higher levels of free cortisol in the body and maximizes the amount of metabolic fuels such as glucose in the kidneys and liver. Once the individual is no longer in survival state, the body releases high levels of enzymes to break up the cortisol in the body. In the case of severe trauma, the amount of enzymes released is substantially high.

              When the Holocaust survivor is then pregnant, the mother has lower levels of cortisol but is then producing high amounts of the reducing enzymes. The fetus often produces additional reducing enzymes to protect the fetus from the cortisol that is present in the mother’s system. In epigenetics, this process helps prepare the child for an environment that is similar to that of the parents. In the case of Holocaust survivors, this results in the child producing much higher rates of the reducing enzymes to prepare for a high-stress environment outside of the womb. Once the child is born and develops, it continues to produce the reducing enzymes at higher levels than other children. Therefore, the child is prepared to compensate for the stress effects that one would experience in a concentration camp, but the levels of stress and need for survival are not as high as the body expects. Cortisol is not stored in as high levels as would be needed in such a survival state. As a result, the child produces cortisol at a regular rate with that is then counteracted by the cortisol-reducing enzymes during development. Throughout development, the child begins to produce less cortisol as the body adjusts to less stress; however, the body does not reduce the production of the enzymes used to break up cortisol. Upon maturing, the child is found to have very high levels of the enzymes used to break up cortisol and very low levels of cortisol. As a result of these hormone levels, the individual’s body is less equipped to handle stress. They are at a higher risk for age-related metabolic syndromes, including obesity, hypertension, and insulin resistance. Additionally, they are more vulnerable to the effects of stress and trauma and more likely to experience PTSD-like symptoms.

              In examining the intergenerational of Holocaust survivors through lens of the nurture point of view, one explains the transmission of symptoms by way of learning theories and theories of childhood development. When looking at the transmission through this lens, one should remember that people do what they know or more specifically people do what they have learned. If someone has learned to do something, that person will do what they have learned. Human beings are creatures of habit, and things are learned habitually and through repeated exposure.

Observational learning is a common concept that has visited and studied throughout the theories of child development and how individuals learn. Observational learning is where an individual learns how to do something or how the world works by observing actions or their environment. In a child’s environment, they learn most directly from their parents or caregivers. For example, young child watches his father shaving. He watches the technique and methods used. He watches how the father applies shaving cream. He observes the motions of how the razor is drawn across the face. He watches how the father then cleans off his face. The child takes in how this process works and all the minor details. The child may do this once or multiple times. The process is then stored in the child’s memory and is re-examined in detail several times. This is how the child learns this process by observation only. Later in life, the child will know how to shave or at least the general procedure.