Transgenerational trauma

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Transgenerational trauma is the psychological and physiological effects that the trauma experienced by people has on subsequent generations in that group. The primary modes of transmission are the uterine environment during pregnancy causing epigenetic changes in the developing embryo, and the shared family environment of the infant causing psychological, behavioral and social changes in the individual.

Collective 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. For example, collective trauma was experienced by Jewish Holocaust survivors and other members of the Jewish community at the time, by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada during the Canadian Indian residential school system and by black Americans who were enslaved. When this collective trauma affects subsequent generations, it is called transgenerational trauma. 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.

Transgenerational trauma can be a collective experience that affects groups of people who share a cultural identity (e.g., ethnicity, nationality, or religious identity). It can also be applied to single families or individual parent–child dyads. 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.

Examples 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 Scramble for Africa, 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. Descendants of survivors may experience extreme stress, leading to a variety of other consequences.

The mechanism for transmission of trauma may be via epigenetic modifications introduced by stress, passed down via environmental or cultural conditions. 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.

While transgenerational trauma made headlines in the mid-2000s, it has been met with skepticism and criticism from some scientists.