Swiss study – trauma affects the next generation – culture
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Those who experience violence often suffer from psychological and physical consequences for the rest of their lives. A study by the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva shows that stress is passed on to the next generation.
An act of violence, a catastrophe or a war: Events that threaten your own life or that of relatives or lead to physical attacks can trigger a dream. The affected person experiences acute stress.
The protective layer of their ego is breached, their integrity attacked. She loses her sense of security. She is shaken to her core.
The body reacts to such situations by assuming a fighting position, fleeing or freezing, says Daniel Schechter, psychiatrist at the University Hospital in Lausanne: “The heart is racing, breathing is getting faster, it’s about survival. If we can’t talk to others about such experiences, then the body develops disorders such as muscle tension, headaches, stomach cramps, nausea and even vomiting.”
Complex parent-child relationships
Individuals who have experienced trauma and have since suffered from such disorders are often unable to respond appropriately to the problems they face.
Daniel Schechter and a research team at the Universities of Lausanne and Geneva in the national research focus “Synapsy” on neurobiology and mental illnesses investigated what consequences this has in particular for the relationship between parents and children.
The focus of the study is on women who have experienced domestic violence in the past, who have been physically or sexually abused and who now have children. Using 64 mother-child pairs, it is analyzed how the women’s post-traumatic stress disorders affect their children at different ages.
Burdens of the mother are released
A first publication at the beginning of the year showed that the women affected find it more difficult than mothers without such burdens to recognize the feelings of their small children. At this age, they express feelings largely non-verbally. Stressed mothers are often not in a position to respond appropriately.
This affects children’s ability to self-aware and regulate their emotions, such as self-soothing.
Disorders often show up in the form of physical symptoms, not only in the mothers but also in the children.
A further analysis of these mother-child groups shows how the stresses of traumatized women later affect the health of their children when they start school at around the age of seven.
For this purpose, their state of health was recorded using a questionnaire that was filled in by the mothers. The researchers also conducted interviews with the children.
Early detection of family trauma is necessary
The analysis now shows that the mother’s trauma is directly related to the severity of her child’s psychological stress.
The burden is thus also passed on to the next generation, says Daniel Schechter: “Such disorders often manifest themselves not only in the mothers, but also in the children in the form of physical symptoms without a medical cause being found.”
It is a problem, according to Daniel Schechter, that the medical staff often overlooks the fact that some families are burdened with great stress, which affects relationships. It is important to recognize a trauma in the family, which is often not expressed through words, but through the body, even in the following generation.
The research team notes that more attention will be paid in the future. This could help avoid unnecessary emergency room visits and stressful medical procedures.