Traumatic Injury of Transgenerational Trauma – A Challenge for Psychotherapy

Abstract:
This lecture by Martin Miller, a son of Alice Miller, a famous child advocate and an author of many books related to traumatic childhoods, but who was not able to protect her own son from trauma and abuse. After Alice Miller’s death, her son wrote a book, The True Drama of the Gifted Child: The Phantom Alice Miller – The Real Person, recounting his experience from a child-victim perspective. This topic was a base for the documentary, “Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller?”
At this conference, Martin Miller will discuss his trauma therapy approach that tries to resolve the experienced trauma through a specific relationship with the patient. This therapeutic relationship adapts the theory of the early development of the self. Utilizing this method, the unreal emotional traumatic memories are elaborated into an episodic narrative with the support of the therapist. It is important that the patients increasingly realize that they are no longer helpless and at the mercy of the event(s) which triggered the trauma. This therapeutic approach is rooted in the theories of Donald W. Winnicott, John Bowlby, Christian Keysers, Gerhard Roth, Antonio Damasio, Joseph Le Doux, Peter Levine, and Joachim Bauer.

Bio:
Psychologist Martin Miller, PhLic/FSP (Federation of Swiss Psychologists) practices in Uster, near Zurich. Born in Switzerland, in a family of famous psychologist and advocate of children Alice Miller, he developed a new approach to working with early trauma, which is based on rebuilding the “self” of the patient through a special relationship with the therapist. After his mother’s death, Martin Miller’s book, The True “Drama of the Gifted Child”: The Phantom Alice Miller — The Real Person, saw the light, first in German, then in English. It revealed Martin’s traumatic childhood and pain, and it became a shock to professionals and parents all over the world. In 2020, the award-winning documentary film about his life, titled “Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller?” premiered in Switzerland, and then in US. His website is martinmiller.ch.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss Martin Miller’s therapy with traumatic injuries that is based on rebuilding the “self” – from emotional memories to episodic narratives.
• Discuss the core aspects of Martin Miller’s work with early trauma – developmental, relational, and empathic while professional.

Internalization of Childhood Trauma and Reenactment in the Next Generations

Abstract:
Dr. Celani will present Fairbairn’s Object Theory as it speaks to the issue of the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next. Fairbairn recognized that the developing child is unable to accept or tolerate memories of empathic parental failures that occurred in their childhood. These events have to be dissociated into the child’s unconscious so he/she can continue to believe that he/she is loved and safe. Without these illusory beliefs the child would be exposed to intolerable fears of abandonment. Over time children in aggressive, unsafe family environments build up an enormous reservoir of split off memories of abuse as well as memories of the rejecting parent. These memories continue to live in the individuals unconscious until some event in the external world triggers them and they emerge in full force. The birth of a child is often the trigger that allows the now adult to see his/her infant in exactly the same way as he/she was seen by the rejecting/indifferent or exploitive parent, and that innocent child is faced with the same fury/contempt or indifference as their parent faced in the prior generation.

Bio:
David P. Celani, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who practiced for more than twenty-five years in Burlington, Vermont. In treatment, he focused on his patients’ “attachment to bad objects”, which manifested through their inability to separate from parents, friends, or marital partners who demeaned, criticized, or abused them. Celani now presents workshops throughout the United States on Object Relations theory. His books with Columbia University Press include Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting, The Illusion of Love: Why the Battered Woman Returns to Her Abuser, and Leaving Home: How to Separate From Your Difficult Family.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Compare Fairbairn’s structural theory to other theories of intergenerational transmission of trauma.
• Analyze their patients in terms of the unconscious contents that they internalized as a consequence of being faced with a parent who discharged  their dissociated contempt/hostility or indifference  on them as a child.

Family Secrets and Transgenerational Transmission of Trauma: How to work them through? – A Personal Path of Awareness.

Abstract:
Like a jigsaw puzzle, pieces of family memories can be recollected to compose a better picture of our personal heritage. One’s earliest imprints are keys to understand later life choices as the past interferes with the present. Family secrets and individual destinies of ascendants—sometimes intersecting with tragic moments of history—impair our adult existence and must be worked through. How could these painful legacies possibly be untied and not passed on to our own children? Marc-Andre Cotton will address some decisive moments of his journey through unresolved issues of his parents’ lineage and subsequent awareness of traumatic transmission. He will discuss the integrating power of such a resolution process in his own life and share broader reflections on the healing potential of family re-enactments.

Bio:
Marc-André Cotton, M.Econ., M.Geog., M.Ed., is a psychohistorian; independent researcher and consultant; currently teaching at the Geneva College. He is a co-founder, with his late wife therapist Sylvie Vermeulen, of the Conscious Perspective (regardconscient.net) on childhood trauma, parenting and psychotherapy. He regularly writes for the French quarterly PEPS, a magazine dedicated to young parents who want to implement benevolent parenting in the family and facilitates training for coaching parents in France. Marc-Andre is International Vice-president of the International Psychohistorical Association, where he also serves as a founding member of the Parenting and Transgenerational Trauma Working Groups.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss the proposed healing power of awareness of transgenerational trauma.
• Utilize the method of looking into family patterns as potential transgenerational legacies that can be resolved, if unwanted.

Two Unusual Cases of Transgenerational Trauma and Its Mourning That Lead to Healin. 

Abstract:
Doris Leicher will speak on two unusual cases of transmitted trauma from her personal experience. The first one is about her immigrating to the US due to her father’s excellent treatment of the head trauma (at the end of WWII) in a US Lazarette, which imbued the US with a positive halo. The other one is related to the healing power of resolution of intergenerational conflict related to the process of individuation. Both cases go beyond the usual focus on transmitted scars and bring hope of a possibility of posttraumatic growth.

Bio:
Dorothea Leicher, MEd, MSS, NCPsyA emigrated from Germany to Philadelphia in 1976, and worked as administrator of the analytic clinic and was in private practice (Mental Health and addictions) for 30 years. Her interests focus on how habits shape perception and personality, and on evolutionary impacts on psychology, including religion.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss the role of affect in transgenerational learning.
• Utilize a dialectic perspective in developing an integrative resolution of trauma.

From the Big Apple to the Big Olive: A Family Cookbook Turned Multigenerational Memoir 

Abstract:
Gabriella Becchina will discuss her experiences of overcoming transgenerational trauma and her theories of this subject matter that are born from the actual unfolding of life events which aren’t easily recounted other than in narrative form. Her essay includes sources, studies in neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology, and especially references to trauma experts including speakers and life coaches, psychohistorians and medical doctors such as Gabor Maté, James Fallon, Stephen Borges, Deb Dana, Gordon Neufeld, Peter A. Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Pete Walker, Ruth Buczynski, Darlene Lancer, Judith Herman, Jackson MacKenzie, John Bradshaw, Melodie Beatty, Pia Mellody, Eckhart Tolle, Matthieu Ricard, Thich Nhat Hanh, Nick Keomahavong, Mark Manson, Richard Grannon, Ross Rosenberg, Craig Malkin, Tami Simon, Mel Robbins, Robert Sapolsky, Ramani S. Durvasula, Judith Prager, Felicity de Zulueta, Marc-André Cotton, François Le Doze, Olivier Maurel, Andrew Huberman, Stasha Gominak.

Bio:
Gabriella Becchina, MA was born in Basel, Switzerland, and presently lives in Sicily, where she is involved in various projects that unite nature and nurture, tourism and cooking, entrepreneurship, multi-language translation, mental health and writing. Gabriella attended Columbia University and holds a Master’s degree in Art History, having interrupted her Ph.D. studies. She is currently applying herself to a memoir and cookbook titled From the Big Apple to the Big Olive. Gabriella was playing an integral role in our conference on “Who’s Afraid of Alice Miller?” – as a translator and collaborator.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss Gabriella Becchina’s experience of overcoming inherited trauma and her analysis at this stage.
• Utilize Gabriella Becchina’s account of using the everyday family life narratives to overcome transgenerational trauma.

Dreaming the Memories of Our Parents: Understanding Neurobiology of Transgenerational Trauma and the Capacities for Its Healing

Abstract:
Selma Freiberg once said that “trauma demands repetition.” What if actual trauma did not happen in real life of one particular person, but he/she feels that it was real, as it is repeated every night — in every dream? Do children and grandchildren of survivors of Holocaust and of the pogroms dream the memories of their parents and grandparents? Does their imagination “make them up” or do they have a transgenerational connection to the traumatic past of their parents and grandparents, even if they were protected from knowing and hearing the horrors of what actually happened to their loved ones sometime one or two generations apart? Are these people born with some specific biological markers (e.g., lower cortisol levels)? Can fear be passed along from parents to children by smell? All these questions can be answered positively (see work of Debiec; Dias and Ressler; and others), and can be explained neurobiologically.

This presentation will offer some neuro-psychoeducational reflections on the topic of transgenerational trauma, as well as a very personal touch, a personal story of growing up in a very nurturing and cultured, but very small family, and not knowing of the circumstances of “why small?”

Bio:
Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD is a neurologist and neurorehabilitation specialist, specializing in brain injury and autoimmune neurological conditions. She is a founder of Neurorecovery Solutions, a non-profit organization that helps families with neurological patients. Inna is trained in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and for over a decade, she serves as a scientific faculty member and programs director at the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is an active member of the IPA and IPA’s working Groups, incl. the one on Parenting. She is a co-founder of Parents First Educational Network™ dedicated to prevention of childhood trauma and joyous parenthood.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Discuss neurobiological patterns of transgenerational trauma.
• Utilize the triune brain theory in working with trauma, incl. inter- and transgenerational trauma.
• Discuss and compare various mechanisms of trauma.

Myths and Realities about Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma 

Abstract:
Trauma has become so commonplace that it has lost its original meaning, which in broad terms means experiencing a situation that is impossible to cope with and withstand.  And, what exactly is being transmitted to the next generation is also so generalized, which has come to imply that descendants of trauma survivors are also traumatized.  This presentation will explore the consequences of growing with Holocaust survivor parents. What distinguishes this population from their peers whose parents were not survivors?  Who among the second generation of Holocaust survivors are truly traumatized.

Bio:
Eva Fogelman is an American psychologist, writer, filmmaker and a pioneer in the treatment of psychological effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their descendants. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust and co-editor of Children During the Nazi Reign: Psychological Perspectives on the Interview Process. She is the writer and co-producer of the award-winning documentary Breaking the Silence: the Generation After the Holocaust and co-author of Children in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath: Historical and Psychological Studies of the Kestenberg Archive (2019). Dr. Fogelman is the Founder and Co-Director of Psychotherapy with Generations of the Holocaust and Related Traumas, Training Institute for Mental-Health.  She is the Co-Director of Child Development Research, and Co-Founder and Director of Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers (ne Foundation for the Righteous). She has served as an advisor to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Learning points:
At the end of this educational activity, its participants will be able to:

• Compare intergenerational effects of growing up with Holocaust survivor parents with other kinds of trauma.
• Analyzeresearch projects that are valid and reliable to account for intergenerational consequences of trauma.
• Discusshow the Holocaust trauma reverberates in the lives of the descendants of the survivors.
• Utilize a template in working with descendants of various historically traumatized patients that is offered by Dr. Fogelman.

Trauma Lingering in Groups, Families, and Individuals: Americans and Germans

Abstract:
This presentation by Dr. Peter Petschauer will include the stories of three African-American acquaintances and the memories of the lingering Southern-American trauma of their grandparents, about the loss of the civil war. Then, the presenter will turn to lingering German trauma from WWII.

Bio:
Peter Petschauer, PhD, Dhc. is a Professor Emeritus, Appalachian State University. He is a historian, psychohistorian, author and poet. His recent publications include “An Immigrant in the 1960s; Becoming an American in New York City” (2020), a book of poems, “Hopes and Fears: Past and Present” (2019), and a forthcoming this year another poetry book, “Listen to Rarely Heard Voices.”

Teaching with Trauma: Interrogating the Layers of Trauma in the Classroom

Abstract:
Amy Hundall’s title can be interpreted in multiple ways and that is the intent. She teaches about intergenerational trauma in all of her courses, bringing her research on multigenerational trauma into the discussion, while navigating her own trauma and the trauma that unwittingly rears its head among her students. The semesters are a constant delicate dance with Amy’s main goal being that all students leave the semester having learned more about the subject, trauma, and themselves and leave unscathed from their personal discoveries in the class. This presentation will discuss how this material can be presented in a safe way; how to identify students being affected by the material or their life experiences, and the methods that could be used to protect us all.

Bio:
Amy C. Hudnall is a Senior Lecturer at the Departments of History and Global Studies of the Appalachian State University. She is also a Fellow at the Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, and a Fellow of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. Amy Hudnall’s work focuses on key aspects of genocide, in particular trauma theory, human rights, perpetrators, and cross-cultural conflict. She has written numerous articles and book chapters as well as presenting, with her colleagues, at multiple venues, including, UNESCO, Paris; Kampala, Uganda; Amman, Jordan; Berlin, Germany; San Jose, Costa Rica; and across the United States and Canada.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing: The Haunting Legacies of the Cultural Revolution in China

Abstract:
As the third generation of the Cultural Revolution, Jun Lu, a PhD candidate from Canada, will talk about the impacts on her life brought by the difficult histories of her grandparents. With help from her analyst and supervisor in the past six years, she walked through the emotional situations and started to understand her parents, grandparents, and the social-historical environment. Her research then turned to understanding of historical actors in their time, such as the controversial political leader Mao Zedong in China. Jun Lu’s presentation will focus on the following points: 1) why the Cultural Revolution needs to be reviewed through the lens of transgenerational transmission of trauma; 2) what kinds of research have been done so far; 3) which questions remain to be answered; 4) how the study on the Cultural Revolution may contribute to the trauma theory and transgenerational transmission of trauma.

Bio:
Jun Lu is a PhD student at York University, Toronto, Canada. She plans to interview the second generation of the Cultural Revolution for her postdoctoral work. Currently, Jun Lu is focusing on analyzing the novel written by the second or third generation and exploring how they work through the difficult histories through diaspora literature.