Mine, Yours, Ours? Working Through Transgenerational Trauma with Transgenerational Defense Mechanisms

Abstract: In our earlier papers, we focused on the psychological effects of mass societal traumas over several generations and introduced the concept of the Transgenerational Atmosphere . This model describes the non-verbal sharing of experiences between the generations in mass societal traumas. In our model, the vehicle for transmitting transgenerational experiences is a joint, traumatized psychic field, in which the boundaries between past, present, and future time are blurred and disappear, as do those between self and other , and generations. We hypothesize that through the transgenerational atmosphere as a psychic field, it is possible to transmit not only non-verbal transgenerational experiences, but also defense mechanisms employed by previous generations.