Notes on intergenerational trauma
and its implications for our efforts to collaborate
The dominant, defining dark pattern of our era?
This is a place for me to gather and organize notes, which I’m making public in case it helps someone else. These notes (which will keep changing over coming months) are an input to a further process of synthesis.
What’s in these notes
- Sketching a structure to guide synthesis
- Some freewriting
- A list of resources (mostly still unread as of mid-May 2018)
Sketch of a structure
The pervasiveness of trauma
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How unresolved trauma propagates and reproduces through generations
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What we know about ways to break this cycle
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CAUTION: The risk of reproducing white / colonialist patterns, despite good intentions
Building on this excellent thread by Kai Cheng Thom (@razorfemme on Twitter), pointing out that the largely white tradition of thought about trauma contains an assumption of safety — that a return to safety is possible. What if the reality is that your days are actually dangerous?
Implications for people who work to shift social patterns, and for anyone doing creative work
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FREEWRITING
Imagine a table of intergenerational trauma.
In one column, societal patterns that cause significant trauma. In another, percent of the population affected by it, directly or by family.
I don’t have the second column ready for you. Here’s a start on the first column.
Patterns of abusive power toward Native Americans
Patterns of abusive power toward Black Americans
Patterns of abusive power toward Asian Americans
Patterns of abusive power toward Hispanic Americans
Patterns of abusive power toward ethnicities “different than ours”
Abusive child-rearing practices
Marital abuse
Strict conformist religious practices characterized by abusive power
Strict conformist educational practices characterized by abusive power
Strict conformist workplaces characterized by abusive power
Work environments characterized by abusive power
Participation in war
Participation in incarceration
Participation in violent crime
Poverty
Abusive treatment of gender difference
Abusive treatment of personality difference
Abusive treatment of physical difference
The table is not the right representation, really. It’s just a list, but the reality is a network made of relationship dynamics, playing out on the substrates of policy, infrastructure, and cultural systems.
The trauma comes home. It goes to work with me. It shapes me, I shape it. It propagates like any social pattern.
I work and teach in an area that some call “social innovation.” Or, “transition design.” The question is this: “How do we shift social patterns, at personal, relational, group, and community or system scale?”
Most of the people involved are positive, optimistic folks. They talk about the mandate to shift to a sustainable and equitable future. They help us imagine those futures, and facilitate processes through which communities and institutions can reach to achieve them.
Lovely.
But I think we need to give more study to the dark patterns. The patterns of intergenerational trauma that lurk—often unmentioned — under our conversations about the Great Social and Environmental Challenges of our times.
Policy, care, business, power,…. Our norms are shaped by trauma.
What percent of us are at peace with ourselves and our past?
The point is not to end trauma, or wipe out all mistreatment of one human by another. Whether systemic violence will ever be rare is an open question. We’re too far from it, we can’t see that far.
The point is that we act as though these norms are givens. We accept them. We don’t see them as strange, as aberrations. “There will always be war.” “Some people are just assholes.”
It’s as though everyone, everyone, had come home from the trenches and now we’re asked to get along and plan the picnic. And will you take charge of the Sunday School, in your time after work and cleaning and home repair? Will you make sure to help us all out by not speaking to those new people that moved in? They’re some of those people. From over there. Thank you. You’re a champ. A real neighbor.
No one has ever said those things to me, by the way.
They’ve never asked me to ignore the new people, the strange people. They’ve never asked me to do all the extra things even though I had no time to rest or breathe or play or cry.
No, I did those things on my own. That’s how social patterns work.
You do the things, the normal things, the things you know are expected even though no one says them.
It’s the ink in our aquarium.
They always say that bit of jokey wisdom about fish and the water: two fish swimming along in the ocean meet another fish heading the opposite direction. And the other fish says, “Hello boys. How’s the water this morning?” After he passes one fish says to the other,
“What’s water?”
When the water surrounds you all day every day, when it’s the medium through move along with everyone else you know or have ever met, and when you’ve never seen water of another color, or without all that mud, or whatever helps you with this metaphor,…when it’s all you and yours have ever known, you can’t imagine anything different.
I wondering if maybe we swim in waters of trauma and its lasting consequences, but it’s so pervasive we can’t see it. So we don’t talk about it, and don’t include it in the way we work and create together.
We can practice another way. We can cultivate the skills that break the cycle of trauma.
Fundamentals
- http://www.traumainformedcareproject.org/resources/Trauma%20101%20Powerpoint%20PresentationV1.pdf
- http://www.traumainformedcareproject.org/resources/Trauma%20101%20PowerPoint%20User%20Guide%20final.PDF
Trauma affects the brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPftosmseYE
Development of neural structures
Trauma affects cognitive development and development of structures of the brain. When anyone experiences trauma, there is a release of stress hormones. The fight or flight response is hormone-triggered — cortisol.
When children have repeated traumatic events, there is an overabundance of stress hormone. We know that this causes harm to the development of the structures of the brain.
It also creates an “always on” state of alert. When there is an overabundance of cortisol, and there is a constant state of hypervigilance in a child, other neural pathways are not able to develop the way they otherwise would. In a timely manner, during critical periods of development.
So the parts of our brain that…
- regulate decision-making
- regulate emotions
- perform judgment
…all that higher-order thinking is less developed when kids experience repeated trauma.
For behavior that means actual cognitive delays. Lower IQ, problems with language development, problems with judgment and decision-making.
This carries into school, where learning relies on language, and asks for all these things that are developmental weaknesses. We give choices, and expect that kids will understand those choices, understand what they could be doing and what they’re supposed to be doing. But they may not!
Secure attachment is disrupted
At the most simple level, a secure attachment is foundational for all other development. We need to have secure attachment during our early years. Children who have been traumatized, especially if by their primary caregiver, have very disorganized attachment. The person they would go to to learn trust, to learn that the world is a safe place, is also the source of the scary traumatic events. The world doesn’t make sense! Don’t learn to trust, how to get their needs met.
Reading social cues, if you have disorganized attachment, you’ll have a lot of difficulty with that.
Lasting trauma triggers
Third, understanding trauma triggers. Things that remind them of the trauma that are not apparent to others. Smells, sights, sounds, all can take you back. We may not see it, but it may take them back to a very scary place.
They develop those behaviors to stay safe. We might see them as bad or negative behaviors. Those reactions are important, they helped child get through very difficult experience. Will take some time to unravel that.
Why does a cookbook approach not work for many behavior problems?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgT6oXkIeCg
Difficult behavior is exhausting and confusing. There are lots of resources that offer recipes. They might be helpful, but not every time.
Each human is different. Same behavior in two kids might be sourced in two very different needs. Must understand the need behind the behavior.
When there is a trauma history, trauma triggers, it can be difficult to make sense. Lots of internal processes happening around those needs that we can’t see.
So we become behavior detectives. Looking for patterns. If you take the time, pay attention, you’ll see that behaviors repeat. They loop, because they work for the underlying need, to a certain extent.
If you’re good you can see the clues, and can unravel the pattern and help them learn a new one. But each child is different. Each strategy will be different.
Two children who are withdrawing, isolating themselves. One because they really want people to seek them out. The other because they are scared of relationships. Outwardly the behavior looks just the same.
The importance of relationship
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7hq9ujeIwM
We all understand that relationships are the foundation of most things. In order to change behavior there has to be a lot of trust. Especially where there is trauma, when behaviors have developed to keep themselves safe.
Modifying behavior is a process. Takes time, slowly have to undo patterns that have been established for long periods. You want child to be with you in that process, not something that’s being done to them. They need to know you care about them as a person.
Many who have developed behaviors that the world sees as negative have connected those behaviors with who they are as a person. They see themselves as bad people. And expect the world to think that too. TO begin to undo that, we have to help them see that “I care about you for who you are, regardless of what you do.” They don’t believe that. What I do and who I am are mixed up for most coming out of trauma. No concept of “good people sometimes do bad things.”
They have to really come to believe that. Not just lip service.
But how to build a positive relationship when there is no history of trust? Some basic things:
- honesty: really saying what you believe or think, admitting to mistakes, apologizing,
- predictability, reliability: reduces need to always be on alert; tell what’s coming next, or if we don’t know say what some of the options might be; take time to make sure they understand
- empathy: genuine caring for who they are as a person; trying to find strengths, not just in a surface way — the skills they have that we could build on. Often negative patterns are built on a skill set they can work with in another way. Manipulative? Smart, and can read people.
From Trauma-Informed Care 101 Powerpoint
A model of treatment: three phases
- Safety and stabilization
- Processing of traumatic material
- Reconnection and reintegration
Safety and stabilization
- Attention to basic needs including:
- connection to resources
- self-care
- identification of support system
2. Focus on the regulation of emotion and develop capacity to self-soothe.
3. Education on trauma and treatment process.
Processing and grieving of traumatic memories
“The primary goal of this phase of treatment is to have the patient acknowledge, experience and normalize the emotions and cognitions associated with the trauma at a pace that is safe and manageable.” (Luxenberg, Spinazzola, Hildago, Hunt and van der Kolk, 2001)
Reconnection
- Development of a firm or a new sense of self
- Development of healthy and supportive friendships, intimacy, spirituality
Trauma informed care
- Aims to avoid re-victimization.
- Appreciates many problem behaviors began as understandable attempts to cope.
- Strives to maximize choices for the survivor and control over the healing process.
- Seeks to be culturally competent
- Understands each survivor in the context of life experiences and cultural background.
(Alvarez and Sloan, 2010)
This means putting in place protective factors.
Environment: reliable support system, access to safe and stable housing, timely and appropriate care from first responders
Behaviors: good self-care, nutritious eating, exercise, practicing good boundaries, positive coping mechanisms
In-box
Strong recommendations
- https://www.amazon.com/Survivor-Caf%C3%A9-Legacy-Trauma-Labyrinth-ebook/dp/B071L9414H/
- See Hannah’s reading assignments for our class.
- Trauma Informed Care: a whole body of literature and practices (Andi Doerfler)
- Yifat Gutman, Memory and the Future: Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society (Book recommended by Brenda Sanderson)
- Claudia Black, Unspoken Legacy (Book recommendation by John Moyer. Kindle edition is $10)
- Interview with Caroline Janney, author of War and remembrance and reconciliation (Recommended by Joe Sokohl): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JrKn4uGfTI
- Jonathan Korman recommends Joy DeGruy’s Post-traumatic slave syndrome. https://joydegruy.com/resources-2/post-traumatic-slave-syndrome/
- Another Korman recommendation, on obediance, denial, spanking, etc. — work of Alice Miller: https://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2006/02/essays-based-on-work-of-alice-miller.html and http://www.alice-miller.com/en/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/
- Several recommended Alice Miller’s Drama of the Gifted Child: http://www.alice-miller.com/en/the-drama-of-the-gifted-child/
- Brenda also recommends The Secret Path (short animated film and panel discussion): http://secretpath.ca/
- Another from John Moyer, the CDC’s “ACE” study — Adverse Childhood Experiences. I believe the Trauma-Informed Care practices are based on this : https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/index.html
- Tom Hendrickson’s recommendations: George Huppert’s After the Black Death and Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis of the Seventeenth Century.
- Karen Lillis recommends Root Shock: the demolition of America’s neighborhoods: http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/book-reviews/2004/06/27/Root-Shock-The-demolition-of-America-s-urban-neighborhoods/stories/200406270245
- Veronica Szabo recommends Intergenerational Transmission of Stress in Humans: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4677138/
- Gong Szeto recommends the VA documentary, The human cost of war
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-how-poverty-can-drive-down-intelligence
- https://medium.com/@ginwright/the-future-of-healing-shifting-from-trauma-informed-care-to-healing-centered-engagement-634f557ce69c
- http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/principles-focused-evaluation-and-racial-equity/
Loosely connected recommendations
- John O’Donohue, Blessing for addiction
- Selma Fraiberg, et al, Ghosts in the Nursery (recommended by Elizabeth Seamans as “possibly off-axis but quite specia”
Breadth of impact
Looking at the range of coverage by organizations who work with trauma. For example…
Ways of seeing and working
From samhsa.gov… [relational systems, depth of human experience, cycle of Nancy Good’s healing journey / difficulty in taking the way out]
Trauma-specific intervention programs generally recognize the following:
- The survivor’s need to be respected, informed, connected, and hopeful regarding their own recovery
- The interrelation between trauma and symptoms of trauma such as substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety
- The need to work in a collaborative way with survivors, family and friends of the survivor, and other human services agencies in a manner that will empower survivors and consumers
Breaking the cycle
The cycle of socialization, Bobbie Harro. Here is a source paper. Another source is Adams, Blumenfeld, Castaneda, Hackman, Peters and Zuniga, “Readings for diversity and social justice.”
