Trauma is passed on through the generations

"A 12-year-old boy has been taken into care because of what a court heard could be the knock-on effects of his grandparents' suffering in the Holocaust 70 years and two generations on."

"Her view was that the father was suffering from unresolved trauma described as a ‘vicarious trauma’ from his parents’ experience of the Holocaust."

"The boy, who cannot be named, has been placed with long-term foster carers after a Family Court judge ruled that the father, who lives in Kent, is unable to care for him because of emotional problems."

"Judge Veronica Hammerton was told that the father, who is Jewish and Russian-speaking, was continually haunted by his own parents’ suffering under the Nazis, colouring his own behaviour decades later."

"In a judgment published online following a hearing in Tunbridge Wells in October, the judge explains that the father does not accept his parents’ suffering as the explanation for his problems."

"But the judge added: `Whatever the explanation as to the cause of the father’s behaviour there is no doubt as to its effect`."

"Judge Hammerton said that although it was clear the father loves his son deeply, he is often `overwhelmed by his own emotions`. "

"Among evidence she read during the hearing was a paper entitled `Parental Rearing Behaviour of Children of the Holocaust Survivors`. "

"She explained: `In her written report Miss Gill described the case as ‘highly complex and concerning’. "

"Her view was that the father was suffering from unresolved trauma described as a ‘vicarious trauma’ from his parents’ experience of the Holocaust."

"She wrote that the father is ‘continually overwhelmed by his traumatic antecedents, associated with both his and his parents’ traumatic past with the result that he is sometimes unable within his thought processing to consistently represent J accurately as a child separate from himself’."

"Judge Hammerton ordered that the boy should remain in long-term foster care and have contact with his father six times a year. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12044809/Father-unable-to-cope-because-of-own-parents-Holocaust-ordeal-court-told.html

No doubt, the expert witness, Miss Gill,  will have been handsomely rewarded for her report by the local authority. But what does it amount to ? Information known about the father has been used to diagnose him with an emotional disturbance that he himself denies.

Using this information the psychologist says: "He is sometimes unable within his thought processing to consistently represent J accurately as a child separate from himself’." In other words the father sees the relationship he has with his son as fundamentally important which the psychologist does not.

None of it is convincing.

Trauma will now be visited on the third and fourth generations of the family. No help was offered.