Cross Generational Trauma: a resource of links

Most recent update:  September 8, 2019

(Work in progress. I especially need links regarding restorative justice. Also, please post your favorite links on this issue. Newest links at the head of each section, by topic.)

Links on the ongoing exploration of cross generational trauma, something that has impacted my lineage and my life tremendously and must inform our activism and policy as we try to create systems of support and determine reparations. Some links posted for future reference. Please feel free to comment on the links and critique their premises. Some basic concepts to consider as we recognize and explore recent evidence that it’s not just socialization and psychological behavior that explains the cross generational transfer, but that the trauma actually is in our DNA.

1. The wisdom of our ancestors– what has been lost, stolen, forgotten and abandoned– language, customs, wisdom, healing, is also in our DNA. We embody in our cellular memory all the hurt, but also all the love and knowledge of our ancestors.
2. It stands to reason that it is not just victims who carry the DNA memory, but also the perpetrators. They two carry with them– entitlement, power, abusiveness, violence, guilt. Their inheritance isn’t just the monetary inheritance of centuries of theft and enslavement and exploitation, but the entitlement of and power gained from the abuses inflicted on our ancestors.
3. That is, power and powerless carry with us, into each subsequent generation this relationship of owner and slave, colonizer and colonized, Abuser and abused, Victimizer and Victim.
4. I reject the rejection of the term victim. The assertion by many that we choose to be victims, we perpetuate the systemic and cultural tendency to blame the victim, either for their victimization in the first place or in their healing and response afterward. By thinking we, individually can step outside of this history without collective work and collective healing and accountability is to side with oppression and perpetuate abuse. Blaming the victim is the religion of systemic and cross generational trauma. Another term for victim that can be used, is “target” and the term “survivor” is also acceptable, but with the understanding that there is nothing more moral about being a survivor than having not survived. It is NOT a choice. To privilege survivors over those who were massacred is to embrace essential white supremacist ideologies of fitness and worthiness.
5. I reject the idea that soldiers are victims. Soldiers are perpetrators. If perpetrating violence is traumatic, then that’s easy– stop perpetrating violence.
6. Trauma is insidious– it can make us lash out at the what triggers us, which may NOT be what caused the trauma or the flashback at all. Like the child who dives under their chair when a plane passes over head, miles from the location of the trauma of war, where passing overhead planes meant the dropping of bombs, those of us in communion, where spaces are actually safe, are not the source of the trauma, just because we are the location of the trigger. It is the work of our PTSD healing to learn to recognize the difference between danger, and the flashbacks that come up when we are safe.
7. I also want to point out that POST Traumatic Stress Disorder, may not be accurate. Much trauma is not only in the past, the distance past and our DNA, but is ongoing. It is exceedingly difficult to recuperate from ongoing trauma because the wounds are not only fresh, but are constantly being reopened.
8. Terms like “Children of the Holocaust” and “Post Traumatic Slave Disorder” are headlines here, for the much larger body of work on trauma among Jews and African Americans, respectfully. I use those terms because they also reflect the narrative within those communities, even where the issue of cross generational trauma may be greater than the scope that term may imply.
9. Too often because of its scope and intensity, 6000 years of who Jews are and what we’ve done and what’s been done to us gets encapsulated in the 6 years of the Shoah, and now in Israel. As if aside from 6 years of being the victims of genocide and 60some years of being the perpetrators, is the sum of all we are. (That’s not the narrative, the narrative is that there is some redemption and deliverance for the years of suffering, via Zionism).
10. The Shoah (Holocaust) came out of years of abuse and genocide– expulsions, crusades (where many Ashkenazi Jewish towns were massacred by the invading armies on their was to the Holy Land), pogroms, pogroms, pogroms, ghettoization, more expulsions, humiliations, incarcerations, segregation, discrimination, etc. Jewish trauma, specifically in Europe, reaches back hundreds of years. For Jews who were not in Europe, the Shoah impacted them in Northern Africa, and the trauma for non-European Jews was most experienced as colonization in the particular geographies of location. The Holocaust studies on cross generational trauma can inform the larger discussion on cross generational trauma, but it is not an isolated event. That degree of racism doesn’t just pop up like a camping tent and disappear just as quickly. The study of Holocaust survivors and their children is very important to this discussion on cross generational trauma, and it provides a very clear and distinct set of data, but there may also have been a predisposition to those genetic changes and the other changes that were passed on to children, due to the centuries of abuse and a much slower genocide, particularly for European Jews. (And by European Jews I am referring to Jews who were geographically in Europe, which would predominantly be Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, but would also include many North African Jews and Middle Eastern Jews, in Europe.)

Topics:

Children of the Holocaust 

(And other Jewish traumas, but this was the title of the book that started the current discussion on cross-generational trauma)

• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/descendants-of-holocaust-survivors-have-altered-stress-hormones/
• http://www.scribd.com/doc/130545565/109-Locations-Whence-Jews-Have-Been-Expelled-Since-AD250
• http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/11/state-of-fear-why-so-many-jewish-people-uncritically-support-israel/
• The Cross-Generational Transmission of Trauma: Ritual and Emotion among Survivors of the Holocaust
  http://jce.sagepub.com/content/40/3/342.short
• International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/V8N1.pdf
• https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/21/study-of-holocaust-survivors-finds-trauma-passed-on-to-childrens-genes
• How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations
  https://www.onbeing.org/programs/rachel-yehuda-how-trauma-and-resilience-cross-generations/
• https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/when-theres-no-hollywood-ending-how-do-i-grieve-the-dying-when-i-am-estranged-from-family

  No Hollywood Ending: How Do I Grieve When I am Estranged From My Family?

Post Traumatic Slave Disorder and Cross Generational Trauma in African Americans

• Trauma From Slavery Can Actually Be Passed Down Through Your Genes

  You can get PTSD from your ancestors.

  https://www.teenvogue.com/story/slavery-trauma-inherited-genetics

• “When elders tell stories, they are showing us trust and respect. Those stories become portals, quick snapshots and cautionary tales into their worlds. When we listen to their stories and share our own, we open up a deeper loving space that allows everyone to be their full selves, without fear of shame, judgement and conflict.“
  To deal with intergenerational Black trauma, we must care for our elders
  http://blackyouthproject.com/to-deal-with-intergenerational-black-trauma-we-must-care-for-our-elders/
• Dr. Joy DeGruy – Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH7…
• Trauma and Resilience in American Indian and African American Southern History http://www.amazon.com/Resilience-Am…
• Dr. Joy DeGruy – Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome http://joydegruy.com/resources-2/po…
• Schools Should Recognize Trauma as a Disability, Compton Lawsuit Says http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2…

• Black Americans suffer most from racial trauma, but few counselors are trained to treat it  “People of color don’t feel safe to come to therapy.”
  https://thinkprogress.org/black-americans-race-based-trauma-counselors-f60624aa8d0c/

• “Recently, scholar Shawn Ginwrightargued that addressing the ongoing exposure of African-Americans to dehumanizing experiences calls for a shift to healing-centered engagement instead of trauma-informed care. That departure shifts the focus from “what’s wrong with you” to “what’s right with you.”For example, rather than locating the trauma within the individual, a healing-centered engagement would address the issues that created the trauma in the first place, and would view the individual holistically, highlighting strengths and resilience.”
  How to heal African-Americans’ traumatic history
  https://theconversation.com/how-to-heal-african-americans-traumatic-history-98298
• THE EMOTIONAL EMANCIPATION INITIATIVE
  http://www.abpsi.org/EEC.html
• Disability Ain’t for Ya Dozens (or Demons): 10 Ableist Phrases Black folks Should Retire Immediately
  http://www.talilalewis.com/blog/february-28th-2017

“The Truth is that disability has been with us, in us since the beginning of time. Disability has held and kept us. It is in our marrow, in our blood, our sweat and tears. Disability does not make us less than, it makes us who we are. Ableism and anti-Blackness are the enemy. Disability is our kin. While the world has convinced itself and the Black community that disability is a bad word and a bad circumstance. It is neither. Disability and Blackness is pride. Disability and Blackness is innovation. Disability and Blackness is brilliance.

Native Americans: Cellular Memory

• “The list of historical traumas is long and painful. First contact with people from Europe caused sometimes as high as 85% of Indian people to die from smallpox, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. These diseases were in fact used as biological warfare to clear the way for foreign communities, plants and animals. Many know of the massacres of Wounded Knee and Sand Creek, but do not know that there were dozens of others. The Cherokee Trail of Tears, for example, forced hundreds to relocate to Indian reservations, which were operated like prison camps by Indian agents.Federal policies required that children be removed from families and sent to boarding schools where they were systematically belittled and beaten, and sometimes raped and murdered. Prohibiting and perpetuating doubt about Native cultural traditions coincided with a loss of cultural identity. People began to be ashamed to be Indian. This was further exacerbated when the ancient spiritual practices of Indian people were declared illegal, including grieving traditions, songs, and healing practices. Spiritual leaders were frequently banished, imprisoned or murdered. Their sacred pipes, drums and other spiritual bundles were confiscated and burned or put into museums. Tribal terminations, relocation of Native Americans to cities where they lived in poverty, resulted in rampant alcohol abuse and severe mental health and health conditions, especially Type 2 Diabetes.  Research continues to demonstrate that these conditions are co-occurring in many of today’s Native peoples”

  Transcending Historical Trauma
  http://discoveringourstory.wisdomoftheelders.org/resources/transcending-historical-trauma

• How Trauma Gets Passed Down Through Generations
  https://blog.nativehope.org/how-trauma-gets-passed-down-through-generations

• Discrimination exposure and DNA methylation of stress-related genes in Latina mothers
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030645301830386X

• Indigenous Moms Are More Likely To Have Postpartum Depression: Canadian Study: Intergenerational trauma from residential schools may play a role.
  https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/09/26/indigenous-postpartum-depression_a_23541697/

• I Inherited My Grandfather’s Trauma—and His Healing Culture
  https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/mental-health/i-Inherited-my-grandfathers-trauma-and-his-healing-culture-20180827
  

• “They began to question their parents’ honesty. Unsettled, Bernarda sought therapy; the counselor suggested she was suffering from generational trauma. Her cholesterol skyrocketed. She went on medication. Then, for two years, she went blind.This may be the stuff of allegories, of parables.This may be an appropriate response to the maggoty underbelly of deception that belies North America’s modern creation story.What the sisters found after Bernarda’s vision returned, and they focused on family lineage in earnest, was no French connection. Instead, poring over birth records, marriage licenses and death certificates across five Mexican states, they uncovered a genealogy that packs the continent’s post-Columbian history of exploitation, racial violence, and shame into a tale of a hundred-plus years of cruelty and denial.”Forgiving the Unforgivable: Geronimo’s Descendants Seek to Salve Generational Trauma: TRAVELING TO THE HEART OF MEXICO FOR A CEREMONIA DEL PERDÓN
  http://lithub.com/forgiving-the-unforgivable-geronimos-descendants-seek-to-salve-generational-trauma/
• Trauma May Be Woven Into DNA of Native Americans http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/05/28/trauma-may-be-woven-dna-native-americans-160508
• Indigenous Knowledge Lives Within Indigenous Languages http://www.realpeoplesmedia.org/new…
• The Theory of Historical Trauma Among Native Americans http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org/examinin…
• Trauma and Resilience in American Indian and African American Southern History http://www.amazon.com/Resilience-Am…

• Native, Indigenous cultures and healing trauma. Eduardo Duran, PhD
  http://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/native-indigenous-cultures-healing-trauma-eduardo-duran-phd/

Childhood Trauma, particularly ongoing trauma and violence

• How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime http://www.ted.com/talks/nadine_bur…
• Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear http://sideeffectspublicmedia.org/p…
• Schools Should Recognize Trauma as a Disability, Compton Lawsuit Says http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2016/02/22/schools-should-recognize-trauma-as-a-disability-lawsuit-says/

General Research and Cross Cultural Considerations

• Trauma From Slavery Can Actually Be Passed Down Through Your Genes

  You can get PTSD from your ancestors.

  https://www.teenvogue.com/story/slavery-trauma-inherited-genetics

• Can The Legacy of Trauma Be Passed Down Generations?
  http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190326-what-is-epigenetics
• Implication of sperm RNAs in transgenerational inheritance of the effects of early trauma in mice
  https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3695
• Parents who had severe trauma, stresses in childhood more likely to have kids with behavioral health problems
  https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-07-parents-severe-trauma-stresses-childhood.html

• “Memories” Pass Between Generations http://www.bbc.com/news/health-2515…
• Scientists Have Found That Memories May Be Passed Down Through Generations In Our DNA http://soulsurfing.website/2015/10/…
• How The Effects Of Trauma Can Be Passed Down From One Generation To The Next http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/… “Previous research has shown that the behavioral effects of trauma can be passed down to the next generation — but this research had only demonstrated that this transmission takes place with trauma’s negative effects, such as depression. Now a study on mice, recently published in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that the adaptive benefits of trauma might also stay alive in families through the years.”
• International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional…
• Historical trauma as public narrative: A conceptual review of how history impacts present-day health http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art…
• Can Trauma Be Passed From Parent to Child? http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/can…
• Can trauma have genetic effects across generations? http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episod…
• How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations
  https://www.onbeing.org/programs/rachel-yehuda-how-trauma-and-resilience-cross-generations/

Expanded Research: Beyond Jews, African Americans and Native Americans. (New material)

Cambodia:

• https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/09/13/just-like-my-mother-how-we-inherit-our-parents-traits-and-tragedies/

  Just Like My Mother: How We Inherit Our Parents’ Traits and Tragedies

• https://www.inheritancemag.com/stories/family-scar-tissue 
  FAMILY SCAR TISSUE
• https://muharraminmanhattan.com/2016/10/16/yousuf_decolonial_majalis/

  SHEREEN YOUSUF : DECOLONIAL PRACTICE OF MAJALIS AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR COMMUNAL HEALING

Responses and Resources for healing:

Restorative Justice

(What it is and what it isn’t)

• http://restorativejustice.org
• http://restorativejustice.org/restorative-justice/about-restorative-justice/tutorial-intro-to-restorative-justice/
• Schools Should Recognize Trauma as a Disability, Compton Lawsuit Says http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2016/02/22/schools-should-recognize-trauma-as-a-disability-lawsuit-says/

Meditation and Healing

• “A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in ‘mental‘ disorders in the west is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.” His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is. In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.
  In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.” What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.” Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.
  Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because: Most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past. You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.”…”Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals… It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains.”
  The Shamanic View of Mental Illness

  https://upliftconnect.com/the-shamanic-view-of-mental-illness/
• TRAUMA’S PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL TOLL ON THE BODY
  https://www.gulfbend.org/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=55762&cn=109
• Historical Trauma and Unresolved Grief: Implications for Clinical Research and Practice with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, PhD
  https://www.ihs.gov/telebehavioral/includes/themes/newihstheme/display_objects/documents/slides/historicaltrauma/historicaltraumaintro_011113.pdf
• “According to Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, widely regarded as the mother of historical trauma, “First is confronting the historical trauma. Second is understanding the trauma. Third is releasing the pain of historical trauma. Fourth is transcending the trauma.”
  Transcending Historical Trauma
  http://discoveringourstory.wisdomoftheelders.org/resources/transcending-historical-trauma#_ftn6
• Promoting Indigenous mental health: Cultural perspectives on healing from Native counsellors in Canada
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14635240.2008.10708129

• The Violence in Our Heads: “An unsettling question is whether the violent commands from these voices reflect our culture as much as they result from the disease process of the illness. In the past few years I have been working with some colleagues at the Schizophrenia Research Foundation in Chennai, India, to compare the voice-hearing experience of people with schizophrenia in the United States and India. The two groups of patients have much in common. Neither particularly likes hearing voices. Both report hearing mean and sometimes violent commands. But in our sample of 20 comparable cases from each country, the voices heard by patients in Chennai are considerably less violent than those heard by patients in San Mateo, Calif.” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/o…
• 23 Things I Wish People Understood About PTSD http://www.new-synapse.com/aps/word…
• How To Hold Space Instead Of Fixing People http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015…
• CPTSD, ALLOSTATIC LOAD AND GIVING NO FUCKS http://www.crazyherbalist.com/blog/…
• State of Fear: Why So Many Jewish People Uncritically Support Israel http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015…
• Historical trauma as public narrative: A conceptual review of how history impacts present-day health http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art…
• Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective https://batjc.wordpress.com/
• Resources of the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective https://batjc.wordpress.com/resourc…
• Changes In DSM-5: Racism Can Cause PTSD Similar To That Of Soldiers After War http://www.medicaldaily.com/changes…
• Schools Should Recognize Trauma as a Disability, Compton Lawsuit Says http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/2016/02/22/schools-should-recognize-trauma-as-a-disability-lawsuit-says/
• How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations
  https://www.onbeing.org/programs/rachel-yehuda-how-trauma-and-resilience-cross-generations/
• Native, Indigenous cultures and healing trauma. Eduardo Duran, PhD
  http://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/native-indigenous-cultures-healing-trauma-eduardo-duran-phd/
• Accountability for Internalized Abuse: Moving closer to self-love
  https://www.restforresistance.com/zine/holding-ourselves-accountable-for-internalized-abuse
• Black Americans suffer most from racial trauma, but few counselors are trained to treat it  “People of color don’t feel safe to come to therapy.”
  https://thinkprogress.org/black-americans-race-based-trauma-counselors-f60624aa8d0c/
• Trauma therapy: Why we need culturally appropriate practitioners
  http://www.the-coreport.com/trauma-therapy-for-african-americans-why-we-need-culturally-appropriate-practitioners/

• Generational Trauma: How We Can Heal Our Selves Through our Ancestors
  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/generational-trauma-how-we-can-heal-our-selves-through_us_595ba894e4b0c85b96c66482

• No Hollywood Ending: How Do I Grieve When I am Estranged From My Family?
  https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/when-theres-no-hollywood-ending-how-do-i-grieve-the-dying-when-i-am-estranged-from-family
• How to heal African-Americans’ traumatic history
  https://theconversation.com/how-to-heal-african-americans-traumatic-history-98298
• THE EMOTIONAL EMANCIPATION INITIATIVE
  http://www.abpsi.org/EEC.html

• The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement
  https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c

• Transcending Historical Trauma
  http://discoveringourstory.wisdomoftheelders.org/resources/transcending-historical-trauma

Bearing Witness

• Documenting Collective Responses to Child Sexual Abuse http://livingbridgesproject.com/ 
• No Hollywood Ending: How Do I Grieve When I am Estranged From My Family?
  https://thebodyisnotanapology.com/magazine/when-theres-no-hollywood-ending-how-do-i-grieve-the-dying-when-i-am-estranged-from-family
•  “Recently, scholar Shawn Ginwrightargued that addressing the ongoing exposure of African-Americans to dehumanizing experiences calls for a shift to healing-centered engagement instead of trauma-informed care. That departure shifts the focus from “what’s wrong with you” to “what’s right with you.”For example, rather than locating the trauma within the individual, a healing-centered engagement would address the issues that created the trauma in the first place, and would view the individual holistically, highlighting strengths and resilience.”
  How to heal African-Americans’ traumatic history
  https://theconversation.com/how-to-heal-african-americans-traumatic-history-98298
• THE EMOTIONAL EMANCIPATION INITIATIVE
  http://www.abpsi.org/EEC.html
• The Future of Healing: Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to Healing Centered Engagement
  https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c

Ancient Wisdom: Culturally Based Healing Modalities

• https://muharraminmanhattan.com/2016/10/16/yousuf_decolonial_majalis/

  SHEREEN YOUSUF : DECOLONIAL PRACTICE OF MAJALIS AND ITS POTENTIAL FOR COMMUNAL HEALING

• Native, Indigenous cultures and healing trauma. Eduardo Duran, PhD
  http://www.thetraumatherapistproject.com/podcast/native-indigenous-cultures-healing-trauma-eduardo-duran-phd/
• Trauma therapy: Why we need culturally appropriate practitioners
  http://www.the-coreport.com/trauma-therapy-for-african-americans-why-we-need-culturally-appropriate-practitioners/
• Generational Trauma: How We Can Heal Our Selves Through our Ancestors
  https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/generational-trauma-how-we-can-heal-our-selves-through_us_595ba894e4b0c85b96c66482