epigenetics and intergenerational trauma

And many of the mental health effects of intergenerational trauma, I think, are a consequence of parental symptoms, and not their exposure, per se. 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. So some of these epigenetic changes that are not related to parental PTSD, but rather exposure, may be positive. And the resilience part here is to show that adult children of Holocaust mothers who are exposed early on actually have less anxiety disorders. Maternal exposure of PTSD provides a special window of opportunity for epigenetic effects that might reflect accommodation or resilience. 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. 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? 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.

Epigenetics and intergenerational trauma