James, Marissa; Stevens, Colton; Johnson, Jannea; Gonzalez-Lishman, Diego (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: O'Grady, Kari (Brigham Young University, Psychology)
The awareness of significant global traumas and their impact on future generations has been acknowledged by the scientific community. The degree of consequences from trauma transmission between generations is only recently finding light, and the potential areas for trying to alleviate these consequences is yet to be explored. BYU's Organizational Psychology and Societal Resilience Lab conducted a qualitative meta-analysis on interview data from locals during the Ferguson events, Haiti & China earthquake survivors, and DR Congo sexual trauma victims. Survivors of these traumas carry an altered perception of their trauma and lives in general that distorts their self and cultural place in the world. Patterns of time distortion, poor familial interactions, and faulty processing are major patterns among these cross-cultural samples. The emotionally haunted parent(s) passes on an uncommunicated ghost on to his/her offspring that manifests in ways that often still keep the true, original trauma buried. Each family exists within a community system that often has parallel transmission cycles as well as communal historical experience that creates a large-group transgenerational trauma crisis. The silence becomes the story, and the effects of the trauma lives on. The cyclical transmission can carry on infinitely, without recognition or awareness. Observations of these experiences suggest that there is a critical role for addressing and grounding trauma before, during, and after the time that it becomes transgenerational.