Utilising Genograms as a Visual Diagnostic Tool to Explore Trauma within Agata Tuszyńska’s Family

The burden to continue the war narrative falls on the so-called second generation, i.e. persons who, despite being born after World War II, are equally burdened by the memory of their mothers’ traumatic experiences. Existing research in psychology and the social sciences, as well as the genogram theory formulated by American researchers, proves helpful in expanding knowledge and structuring information on the phenomenon of trauma and its inheritance. The tools thus obtained enable reinterpretation of the texts by A. Tuszyńska, whose experience of the war, although not direct, largely shaped her identity and had a destructive impact on development and assimilation in the new, post-war reality.