The question of the existence of long-term psychological effects of the Holocaust on the survivors and their offspring still keeps the scientific and clinical literature divided. Whereas clinically based reports on of...The question of the existence of long-term psychological effects of the Holocaust on the survivors and their offspring still keeps the scientific and clinical literature divided. Whereas clinically based reports on offspring of Holocaust survivors pointed to intergenerational transmission of traumatic experiences, more controlled studies did not find much psychopathology, except when second generation subjects were confronted with life-threatening situations. Recently, a number of studies have used attachment theory as a conceptual framework for exploring the intergenerational effects of traumatic experiences. The purpose of this study is to understand the way in which the process of trauma transmission can be investigated from an attachment perspective. The hypothesis is that the intergenerational transmission of the ＂shadow＂ of the Holocaust has weighed on the ＂second generation＂, through the mechanism of ＂frightening/frightened＂ responses given by the parent. Participants to the study, 26 Jewish Italian offspring of Concentration Camps survivors and 26 Jewish Italian offspring of Jewish parents who did not experience the Concentration Camps, were interviewed with the AAI （Adult Attachment Interview） in order to detect thought processes indicative of unresolved traumatic experiences. The distribution of the main classifications for the AAI for both the EG （experimental group） and the comparison groups did not show a significant difference between the two groups. Moreover the EG is not strongly ＂traumatized＂. These results are in-line with others similar researches. The data suggests that the presence of mediating factors may mitigate the trans-generational impact of trauma.展开更多
文摘The question of the existence of long-term psychological effects of the Holocaust on the survivors and their offspring still keeps the scientific and clinical literature divided. Whereas clinically based reports on offspring of Holocaust survivors pointed to intergenerational transmission of traumatic experiences, more controlled studies did not find much psychopathology, except when second generation subjects were confronted with life-threatening situations. Recently, a number of studies have used attachment theory as a conceptual framework for exploring the intergenerational effects of traumatic experiences. The purpose of this study is to understand the way in which the process of trauma transmission can be investigated from an attachment perspective. The hypothesis is that the intergenerational transmission of the ＂shadow＂ of the Holocaust has weighed on the ＂second generation＂, through the mechanism of ＂frightening/frightened＂ responses given by the parent. Participants to the study, 26 Jewish Italian offspring of Concentration Camps survivors and 26 Jewish Italian offspring of Jewish parents who did not experience the Concentration Camps, were interviewed with the AAI （Adult Attachment Interview） in order to detect thought processes indicative of unresolved traumatic experiences. The distribution of the main classifications for the AAI for both the EG （experimental group） and the comparison groups did not show a significant difference between the two groups. Moreover the EG is not strongly ＂traumatized＂. These results are in-line with others similar researches. The data suggests that the presence of mediating factors may mitigate the trans-generational impact of trauma.
