While trauma researchers have made great strides in understanding and treating single-episode present-life trauma, they are just beginning to explore the impact of intergenerational trauma and its expression, says APA Div. The transgenerational effects are not only psychological, but familial, social, cultural, neurobiological and possibly even genetic as well, the researchers say.īut except for studies related mainly to the Holocaust, the field is still relatively young and has many unknowns. Bezo’s observations are compatible with those of researchers who are exploring the intergenerational effects of the Holocaust, the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia, the Rwandan genocide, the displacement of American Indians and the enslavement of African-Americans. 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.

Editor’s note: An updated version of this article is at War’s enduring legacy: How does trauma haunt future generations?

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