Transgenerational trauma is the generally subconscious transmission of traumatic experiences through social-environmental and epigenetic factors to subsequent generations and to society. People in the next generation find themselves showing the symptoms of trauma without having experienced the trauma themselves. Growing up in an environment where a parent is chronically anxious, depressed, explosive, fearful etc. will often create an atmosphere of dysregulation. A child will learn to cope in that type of environment. Once they take these coping skills into new environments such as work and relationships, they might notice some struggles.
For a thorough introduction, we recommend you to start with the in-depth article ‘Transgenerational Trauma in the Indo Community‘, by Jamie Stern of The Indo Project.
by Jamie Stern How Trauma is Passed Down Through the Generations Foreword From the Author This article was put into momentum in 2020. Originally, I created an Indo Trauma Survey specifically to write this article. It was answered by a random sample of the Indo population varying between the ages of 28 and 82. Little…
By Gerard Willem Charles Lemmens The Imperial War Museum in London asked me to write the following story. The Dutch East Indies Around my birth on April 24th, 1940, in the R.C. hospital of Surabaya, my parents bought this rattle at the silversmith—de Wolf—in honor of my birth. I (Gerard Willem Charles Lemmens) was the…
by Sheldon A. Krancher On September 1, 1939, the world changed. My world changed. I wasn’t born yet, but on that day my father was born. He was born Jan Adolf Krancher to his parents Ludwig Krancher and Henriette Krancher. He was the second of three children born in Malang on the island of Java…