History is Not (Quite) Destiny: Cultural and Political Influences on Development
Selma Fraiberg’s notion that there must be other factors in psychological experience that determine whether the conflicted past of the parent will be repeated in the child is a discerning one. Individual factors, including the interaction of genes with environment, have been found to contribute to remarkable cases of resilience in children under extremely stressful conditions.
As psychologists, we must hold on to the idea that there is room for effective intervention in the child and family, intervention which will change the course of history and break the cycles of intergenerational trauma and conflict. We considered how the clinician is given the difficult task of hearing the mother’s own cries in order to enable her to hear her child’s need, and ultimately become a better caretaker. It seems easy and even natural for the clinician to be wholly protective of the child but Fraiberg reminds us that the long-term breaking of intergenerational links comes from a focus on the parent-child relationship rather than the immediate situation of the child. Often the parent is consumed with their own memories and identifications with aggressors. It is only through exploration of memories of neglect and abuse that the parent can move beyond their own history and develop a capacity to identify with the child.
This is undoubtedly sound theory and a crucial perspective for clinicians to have when working with individual families and children. However, there are other factors that exert great influence over intergenerational transmission of trauma, reflective capacity, functioning, and narratives. Specifically, within the context of global mental health, we find countless brutal and bloody histories of discrimination, subjugation, oppression, and colonialism whose effects are still felt in parents and children around the world. In these cases, there are often top down intergenerational narratives that impress destructive notions of identity, which are often wielded against peers and families, reinforcing collective traumas and violence that persists from hundreds of years past. Entire cultures grow up with internalized inferiority and transmit it to their children. Although I believe clinicians can help a great deal of children and families at the individual level in these circumstances, I find myself thinking that it feels like an attempt to stop a downpour by erecting a roof. By this I mean, we can bring some under the roof to get shelter from the rain, but it persists nonetheless with most still caught in the storm.
I will take the case of our design challenge group as a specific example. Upon doing some research on Kranti in anticipation of our meeting with Trina, I am in awe of the profoundly good work that she and her organization are doing to save the lives of young girls and women in India. Their program not only provides safety, education, psychological stability, and opportunity to girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas, but it also works to help them become agents of social change themselves through national and international efforts. However, when I look underneath for an explanation of the staggering estimate of human trafficking affecting between 20 and 65 million people in India along with a multitude of human rights violations, especially against women and girls, I see indications of historical and intergenerational explanations. Further, these explanations continue to contribute to the cycle of trauma and cannot be easily resolved, at their core, by an individual approach.
A 2019 article by Angels in the Field, a not-for-profit, grassroots Indian humanitarian organization that serves children, families and communities living in poverty and injustice, states:
[D]iscrimination and violence against women are ingrained in the Indian society. Discrimination starts at birth, where many people think giving birth to a girl child is a curse. As a result female infanticides and sex-selective abortions are widespread — activists have estimated that eight million female fetuses might have been aborted in the past decade. Discrimination continues in childhood, where Indian girls, rural girls especially, are denied their rights to education…Women in India are also traumatized in less obvious ways. Their oppression starts almost invisibly. It takes place in their homes, within families, with girls being locked up in their own houses, women being beaten by their husbands, by their fathers, by their brothers. This violence is the product of a culture that bestows all power on men and denies women’s most essential rights. Among men, many are those who look down on women and girls; girls are trained in silence; they are told to have no opinions, no arguments, no conflicts. Their only choice is to live a life of silence that slowly erodes their sense of self…[I]t takes more than laws to change a culture which serves as a breeding ground for violence against women, poverty, and human trafficking. What we need is to reclaim our humanity and open a national debate about this toxic patriarchal culture and its repercussions.
This description offers a grim and urgent perspective on the issue. Clearly, large-scale and novel solutions are required, solutions that give a voice to more women and girls suffering. When considering the deeply engrained forces at play, I cannot help but wonder — what role can psychologists play in helping these women reclaim their humanity? Is there any role beyond the one to one individual interventions that may very well prevent history becoming destiny for some, but are still limited by the inherent societal and intergenerational realities of the masses?
For now, the best answer I have is to look to one of the priorities of the field of global mental health — scaling. Trina mentions in our design brief that Kranti is looking to expand their reach and support efforts to include at-risk children in general, beyond only girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas. We aim to help her to do that through understanding the challenges they face and exploring ways to scale their program. It strikes me that psychologists, particularly within global mental health, can contribute a great deal to tackling these large, intergenerational, systemic issues effecting the development of children by using our resources to increase the numbers and grow programs that are working locally in low- and middle-income contexts to affect change. Organizations like Kranti and Angels in the Field are keenly aware of the issues and causes that face their youth. They would benefit from support in scaling their programs to start changing the tides of history toward progress, and a new destiny.
Sources
Fraiberg, S.H., Adelson, E.H., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery. A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 387–421.
Angels in the Field (2019). Human Trafficking in India. https://www.dianova.org/opinion/human-trafficking-in-india/#:~:text=According%20to%20estimates%2C%20human%20trafficking,skewed%20in%20favour%20of%20men.
