It’s the current context that you’re living in that makes that so. So, interpretation will always be based on context. So, we could add to our understanding of the importance of parental PTSD, the observation that different patterns of findings were observed in association with maternal and paternal PTSD.Įpigenetics provides a mechanism for improving responses to environmental conditions.Īn adaptation that might be very valuable in the context of the Holocaust, in the context of trauma, may be a mismatch for someone living in a different kind of environment. This becomes very important because there are also going to be, if I’ll tell you in a few moments, a whole set of findings that may relate to the exposure per se, but not necessarily to the symptoms. And many of the mental health effects of intergenerational trauma, I think, are a consequence of parental symptoms, and not their exposure, per se. And that is that Holocaust offspring were more likely to have PTSD, depression and anxiety if they had a parent with PTSD. We came to learn about the importance of parental PTSD. Holocaust offspring were more likely to have PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders if they had a parent with PTSD DNA is wrapped around these little things, blue things called histones, or DNA curlers, and all of their genetic information is wound tight and packed up in the cell nucleus of every single cell, all your genetic information. There are many different types of epigenetic marks on the DNA or on the DNA environment. What epigenetics refers to in a very general way, are the chemicals that are responsible for how genes function. Main types of epigenetic marks on the DNA, histones and entire nucleosome

Now, for those of you who remember, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was first described in the DSM three, and it didn’t appear until 1980. It’s against that backdrop that I want to have the conversation about intergenerational effects. I think we really want to take this opportunity to make the point that one of the most controversial concepts that was ever introduced into modern psychiatry, was, in fact, the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder itself.

Science did not have a paradigm to explain long-lasting effects. And that really increases the impact of these events. I think that part of the reason they’ve gotten so much attention is because we all recognize that they’re broadly relevant to other forms of extreme traumas, genocides, war, racism, all sorts of things like that. But that’s not to say that these effects are specific to Holocaust offspring. I’ll tell you the story of when this work began, how I got into it, and you’ll see that it really has evolved over the course of 30 years. There are studies of adult children of Holocaust survivors. And if we are affected by things that happened in prior generations, the question is, how are we affected? Do we inherit memories of a parental trauma, do we inherit a type of fear of the environment or maybe symptoms like nightmares, or irritability, or depression that are characteristic of trauma survivors? And if we do inherit those things, do those effects prevent us from responding effectively to the environment?Īdult children of holocaust survivors studied over a generation And this is, of course, a topic that has received a tremendous amount of attention in the last few years. And it’s really the question of whether we are affected by things that happen in previous generations to our parents and our grandparents. I would like to talk to you today about how trauma and resilience cross generations. Rachel Yehuda as she talks about the Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma.

I think we really want to take this opportunity to make the point that one of the most controversial concepts that was ever introduced into modern psychiatry, was, in fact, the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder itself. Come join Dr.

Intergenerational trauma genetic