TRAUMA THROUGH GENERATIONS: HOLOCAUST, CULTURE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Наслеђе 58 (2024) [201-214]

АУТОР(И) / AUTHOR(S): Vladimir M. Jović

Download Full Pdf   

DOI: 10.46793/NasKg2458.201J

САЖЕТАК /ABSTRACT:

Transgenerational transmission of trauma is a concept that under- scores the unconscious impact of catastrophic events on the psycho- logical well-being and lives of subsequent generations. Catastrophic traumas—such as the Holocaust and other genocides, political repres- sion, and wars—can traverse time and re-emerge generations later as they are determined by complex societal and unconscious dynamics that govern our development within interpersonal and social/cultural spheres. Culture can be understood as a coating, a protective layer which makes us feel safe and at home, among familiar, our own kind, to which we can reach out looking for help in times of crisis and trauma. Cultural processes transform catastrophic events into a narra- tive, history, myths, rituals; if there is a breach in this transformative process, trauma stays in the unconscious and is transmitted through  the generations. Becoming a taboo that cannot be narrated, a breach    in the fabric of culture and continuity, it will turn into an omen and destiny for the generations to come.

КЉУЧНЕ РЕЧИ / KEYWORDS: 

Holocaust, trauma, transgenerational transmission, psychoanalysis

ЛИТЕРАТУРА/ REFERENCES:

  • Auerhahn 2021: N. Auerhahn, In the shadow of the crematorium: Son of Saul, The grey zone, and a second-generation childhood. American Imago, 78(3), 423–446.
  • Auerhahn 2024: N. Auerhahn, Identification of the Self as an Aggressor: intergenera- tional Vicissitudes of Victim/Victimizer Self-Representations.
  • Auerhahn, Peskin 2003: N. C. Auerhahn, H. Peskin, (2003). Action knowledge, acknowledgment, and interpretive action in work with Holocaust survivors. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, LXXII(3), 615–658.
  • Bauman 2000: Z. Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust. Polity.
  • Bergmann 1998: M.S. Bergmann, Die Interaktion zwischen Trauma und intra- psychischem Konflikt in der Geschichte der Psychoanalyse. Trauma Und Konflikt. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen, 113–130.
  • Berrios 2002: G.E. Berrios, The history of mental symptoms: Descriptive psychopa- thology since the nineteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bohleber 2010: W.Bohleber, Purity, unity, violence: unconscious determinants of anti-Semitism in Germany. In Destructiveness, intersubjectivity, and trauma:
  • The identity crisis of modern psychoanalysis (pp. 153–177). London: Karnac. Coffin 2003: J.-C. Coffin, Heredity, Milieu and Sin: the works of Bénédict Augustin
  • Morel (1809-1873). In H.-J. Rheinberger & S. Müller-Wille (Eds.), A Cultural
  • History of Heredity II: 18th and 19th Centuries, Conference (pp. 153–164). Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
  • Ferro 2006: A. Ferro, Trauma, reverie, and the field. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, LXXV(4), 1045–1056.
  • Fogelman 2019: E. Fogelman, Second generation identity. In The Handbook of Psychoanalytic Holocaust Studies (pp. 83–89). Routledge.
  • Freud 1913: S. Freud, Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics (1913 [1912-13]). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud 13:vii-162
  • Freud 1914: S. Freud, Remembering, repeating and working-through (Further recom- mendations on the technique of psycho-analysis II). The Standard Edition   of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XII:(1911–1913).
  • Freud 1917: S. Freud, Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937- 1939): Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis and Other Works (pp. 1–138).
  • Freud 1921: S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XVIII (1920-1922) (pp. 65–144). Norton & Company.
  • Gerson 2009: S. Gerson, When the Third is Dead: Memory, Mourning, and Witnessing in the Aftermath of the Holocaust1. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 90(6), 1341–1357.
  • Goldstein 2001: J. Goldstein, Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Horkheimer 1947: M. Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Jović 2015: V. Jović, Opšta psihopatologija sa konceptualnom istorijom [General Psychopathology with Conceptual History]. Kosovska Mitrovica: Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Prištini.
  • Jović 2021: V. Jović, Refugees, Torture and Dehumanization. In D. Bughra (Ed.), Oxford Textbook of Migrant Psychiatry (pp. 351–358). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Jović 2021: V. Jović, Trauma and Memory. Revista Portuguesa de Psicanálise, 42(1), 9–19.
  • Klein 1930: M. Klein, The importance of symbol-formation in the development of the ego. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 11, 24–39.
  • Landry et al 2022: A.P. Landry, R.I. Orr, K. Mere, Dehumanization and mass violence: A study of mental state language in Nazi propaganda (1927–1945). PLoS One, 17(11).
  • Laub 2005: D. Laub, Traumatic shutdown of narrative and symbolization: A death instinct derivative? Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 41(2), 307–326.
  • Lecours, Bouchard 1997: S. Lecours, M.-A. Bouchard, Dimensions of mentalisation: Outlining levels of psychic transformation. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 78(5), 855.
  • Niederland 1968: W.G. Niederland, Clinical observations on the “survivor syndrome.” The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 49(2–3), 313–315.
  • Niederland 1981: W. G. Niederland, The Survivor Syndrome: Further Observations and Dimensions. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 29(2), 413–425.
  • Prince 2009: R. Prince, Psychoanalysis Traumatized: The Legacy of the Holocaust. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 69(3), 179–194.
  • Rosenbaum, Varvin 2007: B. Rosenbaum, S. Varvin, The influence of extreme trau- matisation on body, mind and social relations. Int J of Psychoanal, 88, 1527–1542.
  • Smadja 2015: E. Smadja, Freud and Culture. London: Karnac Books.
  • Spiegel 1986: R. Spiegel, Freud’s Refutation of Degenerationism: A Contribution to Humanism. Contemp.Psychoanal., 22, 4–24.
  • Tišma 1976: A. Tišma, Upotreba čoveka [The Use of Man]. Nolit.
  • Varvin 2023: S. Varvin, Psychoanalysis and the third position: social upheavals and atrocity. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 104(3), 574–584.
  • Winnicott 2002: D. W.. Winnicott, The Location of Cultural Experience. In Playing and Reality (pp. 128–139). London & New York: Routledge.
  • Young 2008: A. Young, Posttraumatic stress disorder of the virtual kind: Trauma and resilience in post-9/11 America. In A. Sarat, N. Davidovitch, & M. Alberstein (Eds.), Trauma and memory: Reading, healing, and making law (pp. 21–48). Stanford: Stanford University Press.