The work is part of an emerging line of research and clinical work in psychology and related disciplines that is exploring whether and how mass cultural and historical traumas affect future generations. He is now conducting a larger quantitative study to compare intergenerational effects among Ukrainians who remained in the country after the Holodomor, those who emigrated and a group of Ukrainians unaffected by the event. “Each generation seemed to kind of learn from the previous one, with survivors telling children, ‘Don’t trust others, don’t trust the world,’” says Bezo. People spontaneously shared what they saw as transgenerational impacts from that time, including risky health behaviors, anxiety and shame, food hoarding, overeating, authoritarian parenting styles, high emotional neediness on the part of parents and low community trust and cohesiveness-what many described as living in “survival mode” ( Social Science & Medicine, Vol. Wondering if and how this horrific event continued to resonate with the people, Bezo conducted a qualitative pilot study of 45 people from three generations of 15 Ukrainian families: those who had lived through the Holodomor, their children and their grandchildren. In his conversations with people, Bezo heard references to the Holodomor, the mass starvation of millions of Soviet Ukrainians from 1932 to 1933, considered by many to be an intentional genocide orchestrated by Joseph Stalin’s regime. It was subtle, “not necessarily something you’d pick up on if you’d spent only a short time there,” says Bezo, a doctoral psychology student at Carleton University in Ottawa. In the mid- to late 2000s, Brent Bezo and his wife were living in Ukraine, when Bezo began noticing a kind of social hostility and mistrust among the population. But there’s no doubt that it affects people in our community and more study is needed so that future generations don’t suffer from the trauma that was inflicted upon their ancestors.Editor’s note: An updated version of this article is at War’s enduring legacy: How does trauma haunt future generations? It’s still a relatively new field of study, meaning researchers have a lot to discover about its impact and how it presents in people who suffer from it. Intergenerational trauma is particularly prevalent among minorities who have experienced (and continue to experience) systematic exploitation, abuse, racism and poverty, where the trauma suffered by one generation gets passed down to the next. Years later, a 1988 study, published in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, found that grandchildren of Holocaust survivors were overrepresented by about 300% in psychiatric care referrals. Rakoff, MD, and her colleagues recorded high rates of psychological distress among children of Holocaust survivors, and the concept of generational trauma was first recognised. Scientific evidence backs this up – in 1966, Canadian psychiatrist Vivian M. But both the series and podcast highlight the fact that Ike’s father was a survivor of the Holocaust, and also strongly hinted that this affected his son in such a way as to partly explain (but not condone) his eventual actions as an adult On first viewing it didn’t really appear to do our community any favours from a PR point of view. Based on a true story (and the subsequent podcast), Rudd plays the unscrupulous psychiatrist Ike Herschkopf who manipulates his (mainly Jewish) clients, using their money and connections to schmooze his way up the New York social ladder. This was made all too apparent in the new Apple TV series The Shrink Next Door, starring Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell. A part of this is being aware of intergenerational trauma, and how mental health issues can affect entire families, not just one individual. Many people from ethnic minorities struggle to find culturally competent therapists who can truly understand their family dynamics and the issues that affect them in a wider cultural context.
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