Free Intergenerational Trauma: The Ghosts of Times Past by Thomas Hodge Page B

about as a result of historical trauma. The cultural history and identity should still be maintained and kept intact, but the Post-traumatic symptoms do not need to be carried on through the generations. This is a topic that has led to many debates regarding when a facet of a culture is a debilitating symptom created by historically trauma experiences that ancestors experienced and when it is just the way that an ethnic group of people are. Determining where to draw the line between culture and maladaptive practices often involves a critical examination of what is socially acceptable among differing ethical viewpoints.
    Mass event transmissions occur as a part of an event or series of traumatic events that affect a large group of people. Examples of mass trauma events include the Holocaust, slavery, genocide, apartheid, and forced assimilation like the resettlement of Native Americans or Aboriginals in Australia. There are many different mass trauma events that have impacted cultures throughout history. Several mass trauma events have been studied in many different ways, but there are many events that have not adequately been studied and examined fully to understand the psychological and sociological impacts of all traumas.
    In the case of long term mass event traumas, such as the resettlement of Native Americans, slavery in African-Americans, and the lost generation of the Aboriginals, the psychological issues and impacts of the ongoing trauma-related symptoms become associated with a part of that societal group’s culture. For example, George was an African-American student that came from a typical middle class family. George did not experience any abuse growing up and did not have any negative experiences with law enforcement. George does, however, report that he feels anxious, “on edge”, and hyper-vigilant around law enforcement officers. George claimed that he was afraid that the police will detain him and beat him. George’s grandparents experienced oppression during the segregation of the 1950s and discrimination by police during the 1960s. George has never experienced the trauma that his grandparents did, but George is affected by their trauma and also the trauma of his ancestors that suffered in slavery in the 1800s. There are many cases of individuals like George that are of different cultures, races, and ethnic groups that have exhibited symptoms of anxiety and stress as the result of past trauma that had affected ancestors and family members.
    When examining situations like this, there are many different responses to why individuals experience these types of maladaptive responses to authority figures and various other situations that result in individuals being affected by intergenerational trauma. Throughout this book, we will attempt to explore some of the various theories on how trauma manifests in individuals across generations, how it is transmitted, and how one can attempt to free themselves from the bonds of the trauma that affected their ancestors.
     
     
     
     

What Happens During Trauma
     
                   When talking about trauma, it is important to understand what happens to an individual at a cognitive, neurological, and biological level as a result of trauma. The experience of trauma leads to changes in the individual just as anything that happens in the environment of an organism affects an organism. The things that we experience in life shape the way we see the world. Traumatic events have a heavy impact on the development of young individuals and also on the way that individuals perceive the world after their traumatic experience. This can be seen in the avoidance tendencies of soldiers who have returned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam when exposed to large crowds. The traumatic experiences that these soldiers went through in combat created an aversion to areas with large numbers of people. Additionally, these same soldiers have reported feeling uncomfortable when they