1. Historical Trauma, Power, and an Argument for Collective
Healing Practices
Ty Leisey and Phoenicia Lewis
The Heller School for Social Policy and Management
Brandeis University

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
About the Authors 4
A Note from the Authors 5
Introduction 6
Section I: Historical Trauma 7
What Makes Historical Trauma Historical Trauma? 8
The Collective Nature of Historical Trauma 8
The Origins of Historical Trauma 10
Why Historical Trauma Persists 11
The Historical Trauma Response 16
The Lack of a Historical Trauma Response 20
Mechanisms of Transmission 20
Psychodynamic 21
Sociocultural and Socialization 22
Family Systems 24
Biological 25
Levels of Transmission 27
Justification for Exploring Historical Trauma 28
Section II: Historical Trauma and Power 30
The Role of Structural Violence in Maintaining Power and Trauma 35
How Structural Violence Affects Historical Trauma 38
Collective Victimhood and Chosen Trauma Theory 40
Section III: Conclusion: The Need for Collective Healing 44
Collective Healing 46
Punitive Justice or Restorative Justice 49
Restorative Justice in Collective Healing 53
Examples of Group Healing 56
Historical Trauma and Unresolved Grief Intervention: The United States 57
Quilting as Healing: Mampujan, Colombia 57
Healing Foundation: Australia 58
Healing the Wounds of History 59
Theater of the Oppressed 59
Common Bond Institute 61
International Center for Transitional Justice 62
Section IV: Afterword 63
Healed 63
Bibliography 66
Appendix A: Briefing – Incorporating a Historical Trauma Lens in Community Work 72

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Executive Summary
Historical Trauma
Historical Trauma is not a new phenomenon, though scholarly studies and literature around the
concept are relatively new and still sparse. However, many indigenous communities have had an
understanding of historical trauma for generations; even so, the concept has yet to be widely used
in academia, policy, social service provision, or social change work. This type of trauma is
markedly different from other types of trauma: historical trauma is collective trauma that is passed
down intergenerationally. The trauma need not have affected every member of an identity or social
group for the entire group to be affected (including those members who did not directly experience
the trauma). Instead, the collective trauma, through intergenerational transmission, becomes a part
of the collective identity of the group, and future generations who did not experience the initial
trauma continue to carry the trauma as a part of their community identity.
Although historical trauma is collective trauma, not all collective trauma is historical trauma.
Along with the intergenerational transmission, collective trauma and historical trauma differ in the
cause of the trauma; historical trauma is always ‘human-made’ trauma, and though large-scale
traumas such as natural disasters can contribute to historical trauma, they are never the cause of
the trauma. Similarly, systems such as poverty and social inequality do not cause historical trauma,
but these human-made systems can contribute to the perpetuation of trauma, or to the limited
accessibility of healing practices.
When a group experiences historical trauma, there is an expectation that the members of the group
should show various physical, mental, and social indicators in response to the trauma. However,
this is not always the case, and it is important to recognize that the lack of a historical trauma
response never indicates the absence of historical trauma itself. Furthermore, even without a
historical trauma response, if the community is never able to engage in healing processes, there is
always the possibility of the trauma being transmitted intergenerationally, creating the possibility
of future generations exhibiting a historical trauma response (or not).

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Historical Trauma and Social Power
Social power, understood to be the ability of a social group to define the social context for all other
social groups (and thus individuals within them), is often involved not only in the cause of
collective trauma but also in perpetuating historical trauma and/or increasing a historical trauma
response when present. In an ever-shrinking world characterized by technological advances and
increased globalization, power dynamics determine which groups have agency over future
contexts, contexts which could include elevating and recognizing narratives of historical trauma,
creating social policies to prevent further harm to communities carrying historical trauma, and
engaging in healing practices. Unfortunately, groups carrying historical trauma are often groups
with less social power than other groups (which often hold at least some accountability for the
trauma), which makes said potential social contexts inaccessible. Power dynamics also influence
the internal experiences of historical trauma-affected groups, with community members recreating
power dynamics and social hierarchies within the group to meet socio-psychological needs not
met due to external power dynamics. It is also due to these power dynamics that the concept of
historical trauma is so often left out of scholarly literature and social policy work, as those
experiencing historical trauma have less access to dominant-group-defined ‘legitimate’ spaces for
creating knowledge.
Conclusion: The Need for Collective Healing
Collective healing in the case of historical trauma is vastly different from Western concepts of
‘therapy’. Healing from collective trauma occurs at the collective level and deals with the root
causes of the trauma, along with the resulting historical trauma response if present, and this is done
through any number of mechanisms, including but not limited to community-led restorative justice
processes. For collective healing to be effective, the community’s narrative, needs, and timelines
must be central to the healing processes. When the history and people of trauma-affected groups
are centered, the agency gained by the community works to accomplish this shift in the power
dynamics and to redistribute social power away from the dominant group. It is only with these
types of shifts that healing practices, through restorative justice processes or alternative
mechanisms, can be effective and sustainable.

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About the Authors
Ty Leisey (he/him/his or they/them/theirs) is a master’s
candidate at the Heller School for Social Policy and
Management studying Conflict Resolution and Coexistence
MA and Sustainable International Development MA, with a
focus on the intersection of power dynamics and social
justice. He received his BLS from Salem State University in
Peace and Intercultural Relations with a concentration in Sub-
Saharan Africa. While at Salem State, he joined an
intercultural team of researchers and development
professionals in Liberia, West Africa to research and critically analyze grassroots versus
international perspectives on peacebuilding, restorative justice processes, and local development
needs. In 2015 he completed an internship with MaeBright Group, an LGBTQ policy, training,
and consulting organization which allowed him to partner with community stakeholders to design
and implement a legal name change clinic. During his internship he also acted as a liaison between
the Freedom Massachusetts campaign team and local faith-based communities. Ty is experienced
at planning and leading anti-oppression workshops in small and large settings, and during his time
at The Heller School sat on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee and well as
co-chairing the Anti-Oppression Working Group.
Phoenicia Lewis (she/her/hers) works for creating peace in
post conflict spaces through developing justice-focused,
community-created development initiatives. Her
professional career began as an Intelligence Surveillance
and Reconnaissance Platoon leader in support of Operation
Iraqi Freedom. After graduating from Temple University
with a Bachelor of Arts in History of the Developing World,
Phoenicia commissioned into United States Army Reserves
wanting to support Soldiers and protect her country. In Iraq
Phoenicia saw the increasing role of the military as supporters of the national development of Iraq
as well as a defense and security force whose mission was to maintain American freedom. While
deployed she also interacted with the realities of U.S. foreign policy on populations that experience
war; people directly feel the effects of violence, not ideologies, nor policies. In 2013, Phoenicia
left the US Army in order to pursue peace efforts in the Middle East. She used the skills she
received as a photojournalism minor at Temple when she volunteered as a communications intern
for Musalaha Reconciliation Ministry in Jerusalem. As a dual M.A. candidate in the Heller School
for Social Policy and Management, Phoenicia has coupled her experiences in war and peace to
identify ways to give voice and support to communities that have experienced trauma caused by
violent conflict, both physical and systemic, as they work to create whole and healthy societies. In
December 2016 she will graduate with two Master’s of Art in Sustainable International
Development and Coexistence and Conflict.

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A Note from the Authors
This paper and the subsequent briefing are written to support those who do community work.
Recognizing that our backgrounds are in development and peacebuilding work, much of the
language we use is from those disciplines. Nevertheless, we deliberately chose not to focus solely
on these two disciplines for a number of reasons. First, anyone and everyone who works in or with
communities with experiences of historical trauma should take an approach that is conscious of
the trauma that communities hold. This is to suggest that development practitioners and peace
builders, social worker and judges, police officers, emergency medical personnel, and additional
public and private service providers (at individual and community levels alike) should recognize
that many of the people they encounter in their daily work are experiencing some trauma and they
(much like the systems they work for) have the potential to retraumatize communities should they
not acknowledge the trauma’s existence and work to avoid retraumatization.
The second reason is because academia exists in a larger complex system. That system divides
people into smaller pieces that can be defined and diagnosed. Medical professionals interact with
people who live in an economic system that determines how and if people can pay. The medical
field is not separate from the economy, development work is not separate from policy making.
This separation has historically exacerbated the trauma of many peoples. We hope to avoid that by
looking at the complexity of the human condition that has been affected by trauma. We also hope
that by making recommendations to everyone who work in communities with experiences of
historical trauma we are asking them to see the wholeness of these communities, how their work
is further affected (and often negated) by the work of those outside their discipline. We hope that
instead of further pathologizing and blaming communities for their failure they will see that the
conditions they exist in are making it increasingly difficult for them to move forward, and develop
strategies that help changes these conditions, not the affected communities.
We also recognize that, though we are both members of communities that carry historical trauma,
we are not members of all of the communities about whom we write, nor are we experts on the
concept of historical trauma. Our hope is, with this work, we will be able to elevate the voices that
have come before us, giving weight to and expanding the breadth of the concept of historical
trauma through their community narratives, experiences, and scholarly work, as well as to
reinforce the importance of the concept for those who may not have ever heard the term. We cannot
begin to express our gratitude to those who have undertaken the emotionally charged, labor-
intensive work to speak to their own communities’ experiences and narratives; we hope this report
prompts others to listen and learn, too.
- Ty Leisey and Phoenicia Lewis
2016

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Introduction
Historical Trauma scholarship in the last decade has focused on indigenous groups, particularly in
the Americas. Even a quick glance at health disparities and high suicide rates on reservations in
the United States (US), and at high rates of poverty and violence of first nations people in Canada,
seems to illustrate a larger problem; this problem stems from past trauma. Nevertheless, delving
into the history of many marginalized groups in post-colonial societies as well as the developed
world one would be hard pressed not to find a group with a historic traumatic event, one that has
resulted in the transmission of the pain of that experience through numerous generations and has
been maintained via oppressive structures. However, in fields of conflict resolution, trauma,
justice, and development, historical trauma is a concept more often than not unknown or ignored.
How can something so important be so dismissed within academia?
This paper brings historical trauma to the forefront in order to elevate voices writing about
historical trauma within their communities, and to increase the visibility of a concept that must be
understood if there is hope for change globally. Through section I, the authors will cite historical
trauma scholars (often members of groups experiencing historical trauma themselves) to explore
what historical trauma is on the theoretical level as well as the ways it manifests in the physical,
mental, and emotional health of communities who experience the pain of the past in their present
life. Various aspects of historical trauma will be examined, including the collective nature of
historical trauma, the intergenerational transmission, and the mechanisms of transmission. In
section II, the authors will explore the intensifying, problematic effects that power dynamics have
on historical trauma and the groups who carry it, further justifying the elevation of the concept of
historical trauma. Finally, in section III, the case will be made for group-defined collective healing
practices.
For those most interested in making use of the information within this paper, a brief overview and
guide to taking a historical trauma-informed approach to community interventions can be found in
Appendix A.

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I. Historical Trauma
Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins and Altschul (2011) have defined historical trauma as “the cumulative
emotional and psychological wounding across generations, including the lifespan, which emanates
from massive group trauma” (p. 283). They and many other historical trauma scholars have viewed
the multidisciplinary nature of historical trauma as it recognizes that the implications of the
emotional and psychological wounding have effects on multiple areas of the lives of people who
live with this wounding. In order to effectively understand the many ways that historical trauma
affects the lives of communities, it is critical to explore what would constitute historical trauma.
According to Mohatt, Thomas, Tai, and Tebes (2014), there are three primary elements that
affected communities all share; a trauma or traumatic event has occurred, the trauma was
experienced by a group and not only an individual, and the trauma effects are felt (be they
emotionally felt, structurally felt, and/or materially felt) by subsequent generations, even after the
generation who directly experienced the trauma are no longer present (p. 128).
What Makes Trauma Historical Trauma?
The term historical trauma originated as a way to speak about the trauma experienced by the
children of Holocaust survivors (Mohatt et al., p. 128). However further studies of the term have
proven that there are numerous communities globally who have experiences of historical trauma.
The first complexity of defining which groups have experienced historical trauma is recognizing
that groups will have different experiences with pain or wounding. Thus what is traumatic to one
may not be traumatic to another. In the case of the studies done to understand the effects suffered
by Holocaust survivors and their children that are presented by Mohatt et al. the resulting
symptoms and feelings were linked to one catastrophic event (p.120). For other groups their
traumatization may be linked to multiple events or sustained oppression. The peoples indigenous
to the Americas are also among the most researched groups with experiences of historical trauma.
Arguably the initial trauma was the arrival of colonizers and the genocide that resulted from the
conflicts for ownership of their lands. What followed has been centuries of displacement,
colonization, and oppression (Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004, p.121). It is critical to
recognize that some groups’ original trauma was a single event while others have survived
prolonged trauma through continued discrimination and oppression, but the unresolved trauma is
maintained in the group whether from internal factors (e.g. group narratives) or external factors

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(e.g. historical accounts of traumatic events that do not accurately include group experiences, such
as history textbooks in the US that teach of ‘westward expansion’ without also including Native
American community narratives of displacement).
The Collective Nature of Historical Trauma
Mohatt et al’s second element indicates historical trauma is collective in nature; this does not imply
that the whole group has directly experienced the traumatic experience (p. 128), be it genocide,
enslavement, displacement, or colonization. Rather this implies that communities who experience
historical trauma are those that have the traumatic experience as part of their collective identity.
An example of this is seen in the case of Palestine. Though not all Palestinians were displaced
during the Nakba, the generation that lived through the displacement carried and transferred the
pain of the loss to the subsequent generations. To the present Nakba day is still celebrated by those
who live in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well as by Palestinians who are citizens of
Israel.
It is important to emphasize, as Mohatt et al suggest, that historical trauma is always collective
trauma and never individual trauma, although the effects of the historical trauma may be present
at an individual level. The fields of psychology and psychiatry (those that deal with the
emotional/psychological effects of trauma) have Western origins, and often Western practitioners
and scholars approach historical trauma through this lens. Thus, historical trauma is pathologized
and individualized; in other words, the experience of trauma and response to trauma is seen as
something psychologically unhealthy at the individual level, regardless of how the trauma is
experienced at the collective level. Goodkin, Hess, Gorman, and Parker (2012) suggest the
difference between historical trauma and healing and Western mental health disciplines is that
Western practices reduce mental health to individual illness that is then treated solely by the
individual affected, suggesting the causes and solutions are individual (p.1021). For example,
psychosocial counseling that diagnoses children with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from
abuse and treats patients for that diagnosis frequently does not consider the historical background
of the parent’s trauma or the individual’s community-wide traumatic experiences, nor the ways
their contemporary settings may be perpetuating said trauma (including power differentials and
structural inequality resulting directly or indirectly in trauma) (Goodkin et al, p. 1021).

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Additionally, it is also worth mentioning that not all collective trauma is historical trauma. As the
name suggests, collective trauma is trauma that is experienced at a collective level, be it conflict,
physical violence such as war, social and/or structural inequalities, natural disasters, etc. The
trauma affects all or part of a collective identity group, and any members of the group may respond
to that trauma as a result of sharing that identity. Not all members of the group need to have
experienced the trauma directly (p.128); by being a member of the group that has experienced
trauma, individuals may feel that they have also been affected by the trauma and that trauma may
become a part of their collective identity. Yet this understanding of collective trauma does not
mean that all collective trauma is historical trauma (though all historical trauma is collective
trauma); historical trauma is collective trauma that has been transmitted intergenerationally and
carried throughout history as a piece of the group’s collective identity.
The Intergenerational Nature of Historical Trauma
The implication of the unresolved trauma attached to the identity of a group of people is that
inevitably the trauma will not die when all who have directly experienced the traumatic event, or
are part of the generation who experienced the event, have died. There are many mechanisms that
enable the trauma to be passed to subsequent generations, and these mechanisms (which will be
discussed in detail in later sections) have varied in different contexts and communities (i.e. group
narratives, children experiencing parental historical trauma responses, internal or external history).
Nevertheless, a group trauma becomes historical trauma in cases when said trauma transcends time
and space and is transferred to later generations.
The intergenerational transfer of trauma may appear to skip certain generations but the unresolved
nature ensures that it is present underneath the surface. For some communities the trauma is
transferred from parent to child (or familial or nonfamilial caretaker to child). For other
communities the transition is more difficult to recognize as a transmission. Because historical
trauma is often attached to an identity, individuals who share an identity yet do not exist in the
same social or cultural environments may display similar behavioral or mental health outcomes.
This has been seen by many LGBTQ identified individuals in cultures globally. In many places,
communities have been created to discuss the oppression that many Queer people have

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experienced as part of heteronormative societies (read: societies globally). However, while these
spaces are safer for Queer identified individuals, they are also spaces that have to be fought for, as
dominant, heteronormative society pushes to erase those spaces, just as it pushes to silence the
oppressed voices. This example sheds light on a method of transmission of trauma that is often
forgotten yet historically used to destroy identities that are marginalized by larger societies.
Though many of the groups who suffer from historical trauma share space, familial relations,
ethnicity, etc. not all do, and it is important to be conscious of this in explorations of historical
trauma.
Origins of Historical Trauma
The origins of any particular historical trauma depend heavily on history and context, yet there are
commonalities in all experiences. Historical trauma is human-made and thus not the result of a
natural disaster or other inevitable occurrence. While it may seem like a minor detail, the necessary
human involvement and responsibility for said trauma removes any possibility that the trauma
could be seen (by those experiencing it or by others) as ‘fate’ or ‘bound to happen’. With origins
in human systems and societies, historical trauma can categorically be recognized as not inevitable,
nor is it the will of nature or of a higher power. Humankind is somehow always at the core of why
the trauma occurred.
While historical trauma is always human-made, it is not always the result of one, or even many,
specific actors. Rather, historical trauma can be the result of human-made systems and structures
and is often perpetuated by those self-preserving systems and structures. This adds to the
complexity of understanding historical trauma, as in many cases there is no one perpetrator to hold
accountable (even in hindsight). Additionally, it creates situations where individuals participating
in the systems that perpetuate historical trauma can ignore or deny complicity in the perpetuation
of the trauma. While they at no point consciously inflict wounds or pain on others in their day-to-
day lives, they may in fact be fueling mechanisms that allow trauma to persevere.
Acknowledging humanity’s role in perpetuating historical trauma does not imply that other
traumatic experiences, such as natural disasters, do not affect (the experience or perpetuation of)
the trauma. Rather, natural disasters can easily compound the effects of historical trauma; for

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instance, when a community, living in conditions marked by social inequality as a result of a (or
many) historical trauma experience(s), is disproportionately affected by a natural disaster. This
was seen after the earthquake in Haiti - while the entire country was affected, the elite lived in
more stable housing and were less affected than those of lower socioeconomic status/living
conditions (Ferris, 2010). While the origins of the historical trauma are not the natural disaster, the
natural disaster added to the historical trauma and characterized some of what will be transmitted
intergenerationally. Responses to natural disasters can also retraumatize and/or additionally
perpetuate the same trauma, particularly if the systems responsible for responding to the disaster
are part of the same systems that perpetuate the trauma in the first place. In cases like the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, the actors responsible for responding in the aftermath of
the disaster (the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as representative of the United
States Government) were part and parcel of the same system (the United States Government) that
has allowed horizontal inequalities as a result of the historical trauma of the enslavement of
millions of Africans to persist. While it was not the response to Hurricane Katrina that created
historical trauma within African American communities in the US, the disaster response did in
many ways retraumatize and simultaneously allow for more-cemented perpetuation of historical
trauma to be transmitted intergenerationally.
Why Historical Trauma Persists
As stated above, historical trauma is collective trauma that is passed from one generation to the
next. For some, this begs the question of why - why is historical trauma transmitted
intergenerationally? Why do communities continue to hold trauma as an integral part of their
collective identities, and why do the mechanisms that transmit trauma continue to operate?
The mechanisms of transmittal are explored in further detail below, but there are also contextual
factors that go into the persistence and preservation of historical trauma for many communities
around the world. Oftentimes, historical trauma leads to social contexts in which the community
that has experienced trauma also experiences increased social inequality. Again, the example of
African Americans in the United States post-liberation may be called upon to illustrate how
historical trauma can lead to social inequality; the varied experiences of indigenous communities
and First Nations Peoples within the United States and Canada are also examples of this. Social

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inequality, particularly in the form of psychosocial and physical health disparities, serves as one
of the lived consequences of historical trauma, and not only retraumatizes but also reduces the
capacity of communities for healing.
One of the more insidious ways in which communities’ capacity for healing is diminished is
through the practice of silencing. Narratives about historical trauma might not fit into the dominant
narrative of a multicultural society. As such, those narratives are repressed, oppressed,
delegitimized, and silenced in ways that limit the space for them to exist and the subsequent space
where healing from trauma may occur. This type of silencing is a form of epistemological violence,
a term developed in post-colonial studies that has to do with the unequal and inaccessible access
to the production of knowledge (Spivak, 1988). In producing knowledge that onlylegitimizes some
groups’ experiences and identities, or knowledge that can only be accessed by certain groups
within a society, the act of producing and holding that knowledge perpetuates violence against
other groups that can act as part of historical trauma or to perpetuate historical trauma. For instance,
this is often seen in how history is taught and/or which history is taught as truth. The notion of
Manifest Destiny and westward expansion is taught in US schools, yet the narrative of violence
that was perpetuated against indigenous peoples so that westward expansion was possible is not
included. Byonly recognizing one narrative as legitimate history, the act of teaching can perpetuate
epistemological violence and further cement the possible historical trauma being experienced
when narratives of trauma are silenced.
None of this should be taken to mean that communities, once affected by historical trauma, will
always be affected by historical trauma. This is very much not the case, though there is always the
potential for intergenerational transmission of trauma along with the potential for collective
healing whenever historical trauma exists. Much like individual trauma that goes unacknowledged
and untreated, historical trauma that is not healed threatens to result in transmission to future
generations and there is then the potential for historical trauma responses. Further complexity to
healing historical trauma arises when acknowledging that historical trauma responses may appear
to be individual but are actually produced on the group level. Goodkin et al suggests that
recognizing individual responses only as individually produced pain or trauma limits the ability to
create effective initiatives (p.1020). Historically, initiatives that pathologize individuals (and also

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their communities) fail to address the role of external contributors to the historical trauma, because
they are often produced outside of the group (p.1021). Effective healing initiatives must address
historical trauma on the group level and acknowledge contributions to the trauma, which are not
always internal group dynamics.
Historical trauma is not limited to the mental health of communities. The physical manifestations
(i.e. grief, substance abuse, intimate partner violence) that appear identifiable and treatable are
produced by mental health issues but there are layers of the human experience that perpetuate the
trauma that was created by a traumatic event in a community's past. A mental health professional
that engages a community to work on healing initiatives may learn that a community with high
incarceration rates for young men running from the police may have a history of abuse by police.
This would suggest that in order to fully understand historical trauma, multiple aspects of the lived
experience must be engaged. Goodkin et al suggest that researchers must cross disciplinary
boundaries to share information and perspectives in order to accurately identify the depth of trauma
a group may possess (p.1020). Incorporating group knowledge in the dominant culture’s fields of
humanities, social science, medicine, etc. will create a clearer picture regarding how the traumatic
event affected the community and how it has been perpetuated in subsequent generations.
Attempts to engage with historical trauma should be done with sensitivity and respect for
communities who have displayed resilience while living with trauma for generations.
Acknowledging, as opposed to externally defining, pathologizing, and/or essentializing the
community’s trauma experience, is critical to approaching groups with sensitivity concerning the
trauma, which has often been perpetuated by larger structures of control i.e. poverty, structural
racism, discriminatory laws and policies (Kirmayer, Gone, & Moses, 2014, p.313).
Acknowledgment also empowers communities who have historically been oppressed and/or
marginalized. According to Goodkin et al, many western disciplines have reductionist tendencies;
in their effort to understand (or treat) they often exercise further control by reducing the
experiences of people to a level of abstraction that can be controlled by the individual who seeking
to understand (p.1020). Acknowledgement must include not only the traumatized group, but also
the aspects of their experiences that are complicit in maintaining trauma (e.g. aforementioned
systems of control). Goodkin et al beautifully suggest “Representations of suffering must be

15. Leisey & Lewis | 14
grounded in people’s experiences rather than attempting to understand them through general
abstraction, categorization, and labeling” (p.1020). Those attempting to aid traumatized groups,
whether external professionals, mental health professionals, academics, etc. must be actively self-
aware, aggressively analyzing their purpose and their role in an effort to ensure they are not further
perpetuating trauma, as well as recognizing the social power dynamics of the specific context.
Acknowledgment of the trauma of others, as opposed to epistemologically violent attempts to
understand the trauma, requires that studies and research of historical trauma do not end at studying
or even recognizing the trauma of the communities in question. Often the more evasive aspects of
the mental and emotional distress that historical trauma contributes to are the structural factors that
groups are required to live in on a daily basis (Kirmayer, et al, p.311). Structural violence, defined
by Galtung (1969) as violence that occurs without a person to commit the action and that manifests
as unequal power and consequently unequal life opportunities (p. 170-171), enables groups to
experience pain that feels present and immediate. The urgency to minimize or ignore present pain
is compounded when groups struggle with the perception that there is no cure or the cure is
unattainable. This perception is a result of analyzing the historic creation and perpetuation of
trauma experienced by past generations, the dismissive and silencing nature of present violent
structures to present perpetuation of trauma, and the inconceivable hope that things will be better
for future generations. Kirmayer et al use the example of the experiences of numerous indigenous
communities of North America. These experiences (in addition to those that have been previously
mentioned) include the utter disruption of traditional patterns of subsistence, the undermining of
community autonomy, the commandeering of traditional land and resources, and the dominant
culture’s ambivalent attitudes (p. 311), which vacillate between appropriating and patronizing.
Attempts to address needs of traumatized groups through laws and policies, created by policy
makers within the dominant culture, often only address what they perceive as the problem based
their narrative of the history which lacks oppressed groups experience and can thus be just as
violent. The creation of policies to reward ‘hard work’ by the Reagan Administration in the US is
one such example. The Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) was signed in 1981 to incentivize
individuals and businesses to produce more (‘supply’) to aid national economic recovery; however,
the ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ rhetoric did not take into account the horizontal
inequalities between white and black US citizens and in no way addressed the very real (economic

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and other) needs borne out of the historical trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, and continued
discrimination/oppression (History.com Staff, 2010).
Structural violence that permeates throughout the larger society is partially the result of the
unwillingness or inability of law and policy makers to recognize their own biases as members of
larger decision making communities, the same communities which have historically created laws
and policies (and cultures) that have traumatized groups. These laws and policies reflect the lack
of inclusion of traumatized groups, as well as the lack of recognition that when members of these
groups have contributed to policy-creation, their contributions have been translated back into the
language of the larger society. Larson (2002) explains,
Awareness of the means by which some people are permitted to participate in the
creation and application of elements of culture while others are excluded from such
activities is not only a question of acknowledging equal representation, but also of
familiarity with the structural mechanisms and power relations that make up the
foundations of various rhetorical forms (p. 7).
Many groups, including indigenous communities of North America, have pursued varying
methods to reduce structural violence. These methods have included participation in systems that
have historically lacked their voices (i.e. law and policy making). Nevertheless, laws and policies
continue to change slowly and often regress in their efforts of inclusion, representation, and trauma
reduction. The inability of systems to remove or reduce violence toward some communities (while
simultaneously affirming others) reflects not only the difficulty in identifying the source of
violence within complex systems, but also the difficulty in changing these systems, along with the
unwillingness of decision makers in many cases to actively change harmful policies.
Historical trauma healing initiatives, which will be discussed in detail later in this paper, pose the
greatest potential for success when they approach healing on all societal levels. In this vein all
participants must actively participate in healing which will require work and change not only from
traumatized communities but from sources of trauma. Law and policy makers who contribute to
the perpetuation of historical trauma through structural violence are participants in historical
trauma and therefore should participate in healing initiatives. Researchers, social scientists, mental
health professionals and the like must also participate in healing initiatives.

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The Historical Trauma Response
Many of the previously discussed groups were significant examples because in the aftermath of
the traumatic experience they displayed historical trauma responses. According to Denham (2008),
fundamental to discussing what he calls the historical trauma complex is distinguishing between
historical trauma and the historical trauma response (p. 396). Historical trauma may elicit large or
small responses by individuals or larger community responses, but it is also possible no response
will occur. Dr. Brave Heart defines a historical trauma response as the entirety of features
associated with a reaction to massive group trauma (p.283). These features can vary based on the
magnitude of the traumatic event, the length of the experience, the amount of time that has passed,
the number of generations since the traumatic event occurred, or the frequency of further traumatic
experiences of the group following the traumatic event (Brave Heart et al, p. 284). Goodkin et al
present data from the 2009 WHO Report on Mental Health, Resilience, and Inequalities that
suggests that mental distress is often in response to social injustice and deprivation that erode the
emotional, spiritual, and intellectual resources (p1019). The overwhelming feelings of
hopelessness associated with doing day-to-day battle against complex systems that appear
impervious to sustainable change may elicit different responses in different individuals or groups.
Historical trauma responses are contextual; they are as diverse as the groups that have experienced
historical trauma. Nevertheless, a number of characteristics have appeared in multiple groups.
These include high levels of depression, withdrawal, anxiety, high incidences of suicide within
communities, substance abuse, anger, violence, high frequency of individual or communal guilt,
an overwhelming self-perception of victimhood, difficulty in relationships, high levels of social
isolation, exaggerated dependency or independence, and fear of betraying ancestors (Denham, p.
397). These reactions may occur in high numbers of individuals who identify with a specific group,
or disproportionate prevalence of one group or identity within a larger society.
Intractable conflicts are often the result of compounded experiences with trauma. In some there
may be a single historical event that sets historical trauma into motion, but there are often historical
trauma responses (generally between both sides) that inflame feelings associated with the original
trauma event. The conflict between Palestine and Israel is one such example. The first and second
intifadas have been linked to general frustration concerning a history of oppression and

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discrimination of Palestinians by Israeli Defense forces, laws, and policies that began following
the 1948 creation of Israel and simultaneous Palestinian Nakba. However, the second intifada was
a response not only to the historical trauma of the past, but also transmission of trauma of those
who experienced the first intifada. The beginning of the second intifada, in September 2000, was
only seven years from the end of the first intifada in 1993. Many who participated in the first were
teenagers and young adults at the time and saw little to no change regarding their oppression. By
the second, these participants had grown into young adults and adults, possibly parents, and their
perceptions of oppression would have changed. In the case of Palestinians, particularly those who
live within the walls of the West Bank and Gaza, transmission of trauma is likely to occur as each
generation experiences their own oppression and trauma associated with their collective past and
present (Collins, 2014). As for the other half of the intractable conflict, Israeli society has also
faced its own share of trauma associated with violence. Though not all Israeli Jews are directly
descended from Holocaust survivors, the cycle of violence is perpetuated in Israeli society as well.
Political discourse that speaks with fear and urgency regarding existential threats, war
preparedness drills signaled by sirens, and terrorist attacks have all added to the conscious and
subconscious adoption of trauma for Israelis as well (Yair, 2014, p.346).
Not all historical trauma responses will present as clearlyas an intractable conflict. Some responses
may not have as visible triggers. In the case of Japanese Americans, the common perception is no
historical trauma responses have existed following the American internment of 120,000 Japanese
Americans during World War II (Nagata & Tsuru, 2007, p.221). The formal government apology
and redress received by those who were interned have been cited as measures of healing of all
wrong (Laher & Neal, 2006, p15). Nevertheless, Nagata and Tsuru argue that many Japanese
Americans who suffered internment, particularly the Nisei generation (nearly all of which was
interned and whose members represented the greatest percentage of those interned), developed
numerous psychological responses as a result of their time in internment camps. Internment is
credited with contributing to high levels of loss of self-esteem, feelings of undeserved shame,
mistrust of European Americans, as well as self-segregation from Japanese or Japanese American
culture and people (p. 221). These responses to such a traumatic and dehumanizing experience
were in part cultural coping mechanisms. Nagat and Tsuru suggest that the Nisei generation, being
first generation, retained cultural coping mechanisms of their parents’ culture. They present,

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Specific cultural values that shaped their internment coping included gaman
(persevering through hardships), shikata ga nai (a fatalistic attitude of “it cannot be
helped”), enryo (self- restraint/reserve that discourages emotional expression), and
the importance of intergenerational bonds (Homma-True, 1997). Kinoshita’s
(2001) interviews also found evidence for both emotion-focused and problem-
focused coping strategies (Folkman & Lazarus, 1980). Emotion-focused strategies
included distancing, self-control, positive coping, and seeking social support,
whereas problem-focused strategies included altering their environment to increase
privacy and comfort and establishing social activities to keep occupied (p. 222).
These specific coping mechanisms allowed those interned to maintain hope throughout their
internment. Still, the unjust detainment of so many people based solely on ethnicity left a mark on
the generation. It affects their children as well. The panicked suggestions from many US citizen to
patrol, profile, and detain Arab and Muslim Americans following the 2001 September 11th attacks
triggered memories to those formerly detained (Nagata & Tsuru, p. 229). Referring to internment,
former US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia said to University of Hawaii Law students, “You
are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,” (Hayoun, 2014). These
suggestions and statements were also triggering for children of the interned. Many children of the
interned feared the feelings experienced by Arab and Muslim Americans following September
11th, 2001 would parallel those their parents felt in 1942 when President Roosevelt signed an
executive order allowing Japanese Americans to be interned (Hayoun). Being only 60 years from
the traumatic event these children are adults today who have their own analysis of their parents’
experiences (Hayoun). Members of this subsequent generation are raising their own children in
the country that interned their parents. According to Nagata & Tsuru, many of the Nisei generation
participants in their study reported feeling sadness and being overprotective of their children as
characteristics of their parenting (p.224).
The historical trauma responses of the generation following the Nisei generation can be linked to
the shortness in time between the Japanese American internment and the suggestion of a repeat of
the human rights violation. The reminiscent suggestion by the US public and political figures
following 9/11 was another link between the responses of the Japanese American generation that
were born to the generation that suffered internment. Further insecurity is created by the perception

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that traumatic events in US history could be suggested as options in response to group fear. The
implication that these events have not been used as a lesson, despite the ramifications for those
who were traumatized (i.e. interment, forced detention) as well as for the perpetrators of the trauma
(i.e. stain on history, redress payments), could result in further historical trauma responses. Even
in cases where recompense is made, if the changes that contribute to healing are not maintained
by all parties repeat behavior has the potential to trigger pain of the past.
Researchers and practitioners should be conscious of the array of responses that exist as they
approach communities. A potential pitfall that researchers should be aware of is the use of
discussions surrounding resilience to mask the communities’ use of self-sufficiency to hide
existing pain, minimize the mental, physical, and emotional toll of trauma, and to distract from
addressing the larger structural issues that are causing historical trauma. In these cases when
resilience (read: self-sufficiency) is promoted as the solution and the goal, many communities have
suppressed their urges to seek help in fear that asking for help is weakness. By calling self-
sufficiency resilience groups are able to create the facade that “we’re alright” while personally
battling the internal pain of the past and the present. In the US context one such example is the
existence of resilience and strength among African Americans, and particularly communities of
black women. With the image of the Civil Rights movement as the symbol of resistance, strength,
and hope, many African Americans have perceived themselves and have been perceived by the
larger society as unbreakable under extreme pressures. Beneath this image, however, is a history
of distrust and fear of political and social institutions. There is a particular fear surrounding the
medical profession. During enslavement of African people in the Americas test were conducted
on the enslaved by scientists for the purpose of medical research (Okeke, 2013, p.2). As a result
of this African Americans continue to distrust the medical profession, including mental health
professionals.
Layered over the distrust of the medical professions is the history of what Patricia Hill Collins
(2000) has called “controlling images” (p. 69). The controlling image of black women that was
born from the legacy of enslavement was that of submissive and subordinate. In response, there
was the creation of the strong black woman stereotype (Okeke, p. 7). This stereotype is the
archetype of resilience in African American communities. This woman, because she is resilient, is

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not allowed to be emotional, vulnerable, or to crumble under stress, because these are perceived
as signs of weakness. Even being over 150 years from the end of US legal enslavement of African
people, African Americans continue to struggle for equality. Black women are part of the same
systems that maintain structural discrimination and oppression of all African Americans. However,
based on the controlling image black women are expected (and expect themselves) to be strong
for themselves and others without asking for help (Okeke, p.10). In a culture that distrusts medical
professionals and one that particularly stigmatizes seeking mental health support, the intersection
of woman and African American is particularly vulnerable to depression (Okeke, p.8). This
vulnerability increases for those who live at additional intersections (e.g. class, sexuality, religion,
immigration status, etc.). Researchers and community workers must be aware of similar
characteristics in any community which have been developed to create the facade of resilience as
a historical trauma response. It is also important to recognize when resilience as a historical trauma
response is lauded by larger society to minimize the looming effects of oppressive structures on
historical trauma.
The Lack of a Historical Trauma Response
It is essential to acknowledge that communities who have experienced collective trauma may hold
historical trauma as a part of their narrative without exhibiting a historical trauma response, and
that the lack of response in no way delegitimizes the existence of historical trauma. While the lack
of a historical trauma response can create the appearance that no historical trauma is present, a
collective group may still hold trauma as a part of their collective identity and pass said trauma
from one generation to the next. Acknowledgment that there is the potential for historical trauma
without the historical trauma response is important because as long as there is intergenerational
transmission of collective trauma between generations, there is the possibility for a historical
trauma response, even if there has not been a response in the past. Only with collective healing
practices can communities heal from historical trauma and end the transmission of trauma from
one generation to the next.
Mechanisms of Transmission of Historical Trauma
Historical trauma, like any form of intergenerational trauma, is passed from one generation to the
next. Through the transmission of the trauma that was caused by the historical event, pain is

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maintained within the identity or within the group associated with the traumatic history. There are
numerous discussions about how this historical pain is transmitted from one generation to the next.
These modes of transmission cross disciplines. According to Denham the four main modes of
transmission are psychodynamic, sociocultural and socialization, family systems, and biological
modes (p. 397). These modes have occurred in some cases, but not all communities or identities
have or will experience each. It is important for communities to have a familiarity with these
mechanisms: recognizing how trauma is transferred will enable them to create culturally
appropriate initiatives to mitigate or stop the transmission.
Psychodynamic
Discussions that focus on the psychodynamic methods of trauma transmission generally focus on
the ways that unconscious responses are transferred between people who have close relationships
and consistent interactions. Consequently, much of the focus is on how children view and
experience their parents’ unconscious responses to trauma. According to Dekel and Goldblatt
(2008) the most direct sources of psychodynamic transmission are through projection and
identification. Projection implies that parents project their emotions onto their children who then
identify with and internalize those emotions or feelings as their own (p.284). Parents (or familial
or non-familial caregivers) who have experienced a traumatic event (or have received transmission
of trauma from a caregiver) will then project their feelings about the traumatic event, or perpetrator
of the trauma, onto the child, whose opinions, beliefs, fears, etc. are shaped by the emotions of
their parents. In addition to projection there is also the act of displacing feelings of anger,
frustration, fear, grief, etc. connected to the traumatic event, which is intangible, onto their children
(Kellermann, 2001, p. 5).
An aspect of projecting and identifying that can make it even more difficult for the children (or
non-familial recipient) to identify with the feelings of the parent is separating experiences and
people into pieces and only projecting a portion. This defense mechanism, known as splitting,
enables the parent to perceive people or experience as either good or bad and, often in an effort to
protect the self from the bad, unconsciously react to the pieces that are bad (Peterson-Vetvick,
2015, p. 90). Parents may split based on the feelings or actions of others, but they may also do so
with their own feelings. This creates very clear concepts of ‘black and white’ or ‘good and bad’

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for children who are in very teachable stages of their development. Children will then struggle to
recognize the ‘gray’ in life and the potential for good and bad aspects in all people and experiences
because they are identifying with the emotions that are projected onto them from their parent(s)
(Peterson-Vetvick, p. 91). Splitting can be further aggravated through other mechanisms, such as
group narratives, particularly in contexts where groups with a history of violence and the
perceptions of “the other” or “enemy” live together. Often narratives create a picture of us as good
and the other as bad, and justify the behavior of the ingroup while vilifying the behavior of the
enemy or other. In many cases where there are groups with historical trauma that are part of large
cycles of violence (i.e. intractable conflicts) there may be cases of splitting.
Sociocultural and Socialization
Historical trauma is trauma on the collective level which is fundamentally social. Much of the
ways groups view the world and themselves is influenced by group identity. Formulating a sense
of belonging and being part of a group is as much biological as it social (the biological aspects will
be explored below). The relationship between the society and the individual is reciprocal: people
influence the creation and evolution of societies, but the evolution of society also influences the
language, beliefs, and ideas about group meaning (Stets & Burke, 2005). Even though people are
made of many parts (identities), they live within a social context of many other socialized
individuals (Stets & Burke). Consequently, experiences of some shape the culture of the group as
a whole (and vice versa). According to Kellerman, a primary role of culture is to maintain social
norms and beliefs from one generation to the next (p. 6). In a group that has been targeted or has
disproportionately experienced a traumatic experience, that experience will affect more than solely
the individuals who were directly affected. The experience of those individuals is grafted onto the
culture. The response of those who directly experienced pain will also affect the group as a whole,
as will the response of the perpetrator (i.e. the actor of violence, the unjust system).
Group culture complicates individual decisions regarding an experience because often individuals
will embrace characteristics, beliefs, etc. of their society that are not natural to their individual
identity, only because they have been socialized to believe it is what is right. In the case of the
socialization of black women in the US as the “strong black woman” (i.e. never seen as weak or
vulnerable), many of the participants whom Okeke interviewed were made to believe from

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childhood that being strong was preferable, and thus most of the women worked to maintain the
perception of strength without asking why that was preferable (p.8). When trauma is present,
particularly when it is the defining experience of a generation, it will be socialized into the fabric
of society. The socialized aspects of the trauma may be perpetual grief and mourning or pride for
collective resilience, or it may be a bit of both. Thus socialization is a fundamental, generally
unconscious, mechanism that transmits aspects of traumatic experiences.
As groups learn their histories and how their history and cultural responses amalgamate into the
story of “who we are”, group narratives are formed. Denham suggests that narrative and memory
can date back hundreds of years and can continue to be internalized by subsequent generations,
shaping their collective and individual sense of self (p. 400). Traumatic events as part of the history
of groups become part of identity. However, trauma is a process that reforms those who have
experienced it; simply put, those who have experienced trauma adjust everything (including
memory) to minimize the pain/unexpected change/loss of the trauma (Peterson-Vetvick, p. 11).
Traumatic memories are incomplete because they lack a cohesive plot and development (Denham,
p. 408). These memories, while insisting they be forgotten and remembered simultaneously, are
developed into narratives as the memory of the shock and unexpected nature of the event (Caruth,
1996, p. 6). Thus in many cases narratives of pain are passed to subsequent generations incomplete.
The pain and shock are often present, but the strength, persistence, history of healing and collective
wholeness before the event that wounded and forever changed the group are lost. Recognizing the
woundedness of narrative creation that has incorporated aspects of trauma is by no means meant
to minimize these groups’ identity stories. Mohatt et al suggest that when dominant cultures silence
or diminish groups narratives, this element of silence may be grafted onto the group narrative,
adding another source of distress to an already distressed group. Rather, recognizing the
woundedness of these narratives is an opportunity to realize that there is potential to discuss these
missing aspects of the narrative and begin a group process of healing.
Another word on the importance of narratives. Though many narratives are blamed for obstructing
healing, maintaining, and prolonging conflicts, particularly those that are intractable (Bar-Tal &
Salomon, 2006, p.19) they are also vital for enabling groups to make sense of utter destruction.
Caruth explains, “It is only by recognizing traumatic experience as a paradoxical relation between

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destructiveness and survival that we can also recognize the legacy of incomprehensibility at the
heart of catastrophic experience” (p. 58). For many groups it is only with narratives that healing
exists. Because narratives, like history, are a collection of stories, they can be further developed.
As the history of groups move forward they will add to the narrative of “who we were” with “who
we are”. As their present evolves their narratives will continue to develop to reflect their evolution.
Dominant cultures often view narratives from an unconscious position of power, not embracing
their contribution to the pain of traumatized communities, whether through the act of the traumatic
event, or through belittling, minimizing, or silencing the painful experiences of others. As
narratives are elastic and able to be changed, dominant culture can contribute to further additions
of pain or healing for the groups who live among them with history of pain. Recognizing and
acknowledging the narratives of groups may be an opportunity for dominant cultures to recognize
their existence in the narrative of the community and begin a healing process of their own.
Family Systems
The family system, much like the sociocultural transmission mode, is characterized by how a
smaller group is socialized to view themselves. In collective societies the idea of family is often
far more extensive. Family may include members who are more than parents, children,
grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. In many collective societies more extended family are not
only close in proximity (often within the same neighborhood, if not town) but also in influence.
When discussing the role of the family system in transmitting historical trauma it is important to
recognize the contextual concepts of family. In many families, through many different methods,
the history of where parents came from is shared with their children. Family legacies are often
shared to help children understand who they are and from where (and whom) they originated.
Through the idea of legacy, parents (grandparents, aunts and uncles, other familial caregivers) are
able to share with the next generation their history through memories, values, customs, and
traditions that shape the life decisions of the continuation of the family (Denham, p. 398). Family
narratives often have overlapping themes with societal (cultural) narratives, as families are
members of societies. Like the transmission of narratives on the larger collective level, family
narratives can and do transmit the pain of experiences of the past. Children in more malleable
stages of development are susceptible to the stories as well as the responses of the caregiving adults
in their lives (Peterson-Vetvick, p. 85).

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How a narrative is shared within a family can have a greater effect on the transmission of a history
of trauma. In the case of the children of the Neise generation who experienced internment, their
feelings on the suggestions to monitor or detain Arab or Muslim Americans were shaped largely
by the emotions that they viewed in their parents. Perceiving the pain that internment caused their
parents, many of the Neise generation’s children chose to speak up about their parents’ experiences
out of fear of a repeat. They were speaking out about the experience of pain as well as about their
parents’ resilience (Hayoun). Had their parents not experienced internment and shared those
feelings, many of these children may not have had the same response to the targeting of Arab and
Muslim Americans. Thus family experiences can affect the perception of successive generations
to suggestions of threats in environments that have previously resulted in traumatic experiences
and to family narratives of resilience over extreme circumstances.
Biological
Biological transmission has less research and support than the other transmission methods. Debiec
and Sullivan (2014) suggest that neurobiological evidence for biological transmission is
inconclusive (p. 12222). Nevertheless a thorough investigation is critical to identify ways that
caregivers can support children who are more inclined to display trauma responses. The suggestion
that there is biology that predisposes one to a historical trauma response does not suggest that some
individuals (or groups) are damned to live traumatized based on their history. Rather, identifying
the propensity toward a historical trauma response can help communities create initiatives that
support and destigmatize health disparities.
Of note: much of the discussion concerning biology as a mechanism for transmission of trauma
has been silenced due to the racism, stereotyping, and use for justification of atrocities
(Kellermann, p. 12) that have resulted from the use of flawed clinical data to biologically suggest
predisposition to physical or psychological conditions (Danieli (ed.), 1998, p.657). However, as
previously stated, discussing the possibility may help some within communities with histories of
trauma reduce feelings of isolation due their response to trauma. It may also help alleviate the
feeling that there is no solution to their pain. Recognizing that not all predispositions will
materialize or result in a response (particularly without a trigger and/or with awareness of of the

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potential for), Kellermann suggests that genes transmit constitutional elements from parents to
child, and there are some mental illnesses that have hereditary etiology (p.12). According to
Danieli there is increasing evidence that PTSD in parents increases the vulnerability of children to
also suffer the same (p. 663). Much of the research has focused on PTSD in the generations
following the Holocaust. The study found that parents with PTSD as well as children who had
symptoms of the disorder throughout their life both had low levels of cortisol. He continues to
explain that low cortisol levels also contributed to future generations displaying characteristics
associated with acute or chronic PTSD symptoms depending on the environment (Kellermann, p.
13). This data is inconclusive and will require future research (Danieli, p. 663). Nevertheless,
communities with a large number of parents with PTSD or similar trauma related disorders should
be aware of the prevalence and possibility for a propensity toward these in the subsequent
generations.
Neurobiology has the propensity to contribute to trauma as well as genes. Debiec and Sullivan
suggest the experiences of trauma of parents may trigger neuroanatomical adaptations and related
cue-specific behavioral predispositions in children, which further demonstrates that parental-
specific fear behaviors may be transferred to infants through emotional communication and
associative learning mechanisms that can produce lasting memories (p. 12227). Based on their
research, biology alone will not guarantee that an individual will display a response. Rather, many
of the modes of transmission, particularly biology, are dependent on the contributions of other
factors (i.e. family or societal inclination toward transmission of mourning or resilience) and the
personal decisions, preferences, and influence of those from groups with a history of trauma.
Debiec and Sullivan suggest that, in the case of neurobiology as a mechanism for transmission,
identifying environmental triggers of the parents can help future generations create long term
coping mechanisms and methods to support healing (p. 12227). As has been frequently mentioned
through this discussion on modes of transmission environment influences all of the transmission
methods. Consequently, environments that embrace acknowledgment and communal healing can
most effectively support healing and managing historical trauma responses in individuals as well
as within communities and future generations.

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Levels of Transmission
Historical trauma transmission is generally not a single mode transmission nor a guarantee that a
historical trauma response will occur. Multiple modes of transmission may occur in the lives of
those with historical trauma. Likewise, the trauma may occur on multiple levels of human
interaction. Kirmayer et al suggest that transmission can occur on the family, society, cultural, and
national levels (p. 309). The authors would add that trauma also occurs on the global level as well;
globalization has increased interactions between groups along with policy making by international
organizations that affects groups at all levels. Figure I presents some of the ways that transmission
can be exacerbated on the multiple levels of interaction.
As long as the trauma is unresolved and healing practices are not initiated nor are communities
given an opportunity to engage with the process, responses can be triggered enabling the
transmission of trauma to subsequent generation. Thus healing is key to addressing the
transmission of trauma. Nonetheless healing must not be treated as a cure as it would be for a
physical wound which heals and is gone. Rather healing must be engaged in as a process that
enables groups to acknowledge their history but not experience the pain of an unhealed wound.
This diagram presents some of the levels on which historical trauma may be transferred and some
hypothetical pathways that may trigger the intergenerational transmission of trauma. (Kirmayer et
al., p. 309)
Figure 1. Transgenerational transmission of Historical Trauma

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Justification for Exploring Historical Trauma
The plethora of literature emerging from historical trauma-affected communities attempting to
educate others about historical trauma does not mean that those not affected by historical trauma
ever come into contact with this literature and its concept. In fact, many working in community
work may never hear the term historical trauma, much less understand what it means and how it
continues to affect communities. However, those working in community work are often the same
individuals (or are part of the same organizations and institutions) that create policies which
directly affect the historical trauma-affected communities. This inherent disconnect between
policy-makers and those affected by their policies highlights the need for those with some form of
power or privilege to bring to the forefront historical trauma scholarly work and narratives within
academia and policy.
As might be assumed, global systems are nearly or completely silent about the existence of
historical trauma and the ways in which it affects many contexts. This silence is seen in the absence
of the term in literature discussing communities affected by historical trauma, in addition to more
serious absences, such as in the creation of policies to address historical trauma’s effects. Not only
is it problematic when policies are being created without comprehensive knowledge of the context
in which they will be implemented, but it also points to a lack of voices in policy-creation settings
that can speak to lived experiences of historical trauma. The lack of voices and the limits in
contextual knowledge ensure policies will work solely to address the symptoms of historical
trauma (if they enact meaningful change at all). Policies are used as band-aids (temporary fixes for
symptoms without addressing the causes) that push policy-makers to expect significant change in
the social context, change that can never really be sustainable without recognizing the existence
of historical trauma and historical trauma responses.
The importance of this narrative continues to grow in an increasingly ‘global’ world, where the
histories of trauma and experiences of inequality are all the more visible and salient in stark
contrast to dominant cultures and communities. As communities across the globe have been able
to see the effects of historical trauma (usually without recognizing the historical trauma itself),
international spaces have been created to publicly voice opposition to inequality, abuses of human
rights, and the perpetuation of violence. For instance, the United Nations (UN) has passed

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numerous conventions, treaties, and formal documents that lay out this opposition and detail
international responses in order to mitigate the effects; see the United Nations Charter, the
Declaration of Human Rights, and even the recently adopted Sustainable Development Goals
(following the Millennium Development Goals, 2000-2015) (UN Charter art. 1.; The United
Nations, 1948; General Assembly 2015). Equality has become a key term in international
dialogues, the field of development, social policy spheres, and social justice spaces, and even
spaces devoted to fighting for diversity have adopted the phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion”.
No longer can equality be exclusive; in the current global context, equality is seen as the goal
toward which to work.
While it is obvious where social sciences have turned their attention to equality (or even equity),
it is less obvious why there continues to be no recognition of historical trauma. It is in this lack of
recognition, both of historical trauma and of the structures that allow it to persist, that trauma is
perpetuated and transmitted intergenerationally. Uthiem (2011) writes about an “imposed silence
at the collective level” and recognizes it as “a form of cultural violence” (p. 239). By remaining
silent, further violence is enacted upon these communities by those who have previously caused
trauma; the existing hierarchies of power dynamics are reinforced and there is the potential for
retraumatization and/or reinforced transmission of trauma intergenerationally. In other words, it is
important to learn about historical trauma and incorporate a historical trauma lens into any social
science work because, in the simplest terms, the act of not recognizing historical trauma in fact
perpetuates trauma. It is much more than a passive ‘allowing for historical trauma to be transmitted
intergenerationally’; by refusing or forgetting to incorporate historical trauma into understandings
of power dynamics and social inequality, policy-makers, historians, and social scientists of all
stripes are actively perpetuating practices of silencing that are themselves traumatic.
The converse of this silence is, of course, recognition of historical trauma. While recognition on
its own is not sufficient to create sustainable social change, recognizing the existence of historical
trauma in the abstract and the ground-level experiences of communities can serve as validation of
lived experiences of historical trauma. Rather than silencing and thus retraumatizing,
acknowledging historical trauma allows space for historical trauma narratives to be shared by the
communities that live and carry them. Particularly at the hands of a dominant culture,

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acknowledgment serves to change the power dynamics and does not engage in the epistemological
violence that so often occurs around narratives of historical trauma; this change in power dynamics
is further addressed below. When undertaken in a conscious, careful way, allowing for narratives
to be shared can even act as a foundation upon which collective healing practices can begin.
II. Historical Trauma and Social Power
How Power and Privilege Perpetuate Historical Trauma
No social contexts exist in a vacuum; the increasingly globalized current context ensures that even
isolated communities often exist within and are affected by various systems and structures, be they
governmental systems or social structures that shape the experiences and opportunities of
individuals and communities. The ways in which these systems and structures are created and
perpetuated can be understood through the lens of ‘power’. There are a myriad of definitions for
this kind of social power, from the Marxist school of thought (power is owning the means of
production) to Foucault’s more recent conceptualization of power (power is everywhere and
always a function of knowledge) (Marx & Engels, 2002; Foucault, 1990). Here, power at an
individual level can be understood as the ability to influence or directly change a given context in
such a way that it aligns with an individual’s wants, goals, and/or values, regardless of others’
wants, goals, and/or values. A person’s wants/goals/values are shaped by their lived experiences
in a certain set of identities, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, religious, gender, sexual
orientation, socioeconomic status, and ability identities. Using this definition, power includes an
element of dehumanization: if an individual believes their wants/goals/values (as shaped and
defined by identities) are more important than another’s, there is an implicit assumption that the
other’s wants/goals/values are worth less. When the other’s wants/goals/values are exercises of a
salient identity within a given context, that identity becomes worth less than the salient identities
of the person with power; to view another’s wants/goals/values as less important one has to deny
an element of that person’s humanity.
To bring this definition up to a collective level, power becomes an ability held by collectives
(organized around a collective identity) to shape social contexts for all other collective groups,
along with the individuals within those groups. Additionally, at a collective level, this ‘shaping
contexts’ piece is completed through the creation of laws and policies that, when summed,

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comprise social systems, such as ‘democracy’ and ‘rule of law’. As an example, in many contexts
throughout history, power of this sort has been held by the men of society; men have created the
policies and laws that have not only shaped the social context, but have set up social systems
centered around men (without regard to the voices, experiences, or identity values and needs of
other gender identity groups). These systems privilege men’s voices and experiences and allow
even individual men to operate with more social power than others (this particular example of
systemic power is usually called patriarchy). The privilege held by men in patriarchal societies
allows them to create policies and laws that reinforce and cement their privilege and power; in this
way, systems of power are self-perpetuating.
Of course, no social group is comprised of a homogenous block of individuals with only one
identity; in fact, most individuals hold multiple identities and belong to many social groups which
overlap and intersect. When unpacking social power at a collective level, it is important to
recognize that power is complex and contextual and creates hierarchies within and among varying
social groups. However, it is often one identity or set of identities that become salient in a social
context, which privileges those certain experiences and allows them to create systems which
exclude and oppress those who hold different identities. For example, although the US is often
defined as a patriarchal society, when addressing the social context of Native American
communities, it is more important to focus on the ways in which “whiteness” and “US citizenship”
hold power rather than “maleness”. White men who are US citizens hold social power within white
collective identity groups and also within the larger context of US-Native American relationships,
and yet in the power dynamics between white men who are US citizens and Native American
states, the whiteness is more salient than the ‘maleness’.
Just as no social context exists in a vacuum, so too do no experiences of historical trauma exist
outside of power dynamics and social structures. But what effects do power structures have on
historical trauma? As stated in earlier sections, historical trauma is the result of human actions
and/or human-made systems and structures; in other words, there is a group that directly or
indirectly caused the collective trauma of another group. The way in which collective trauma is
created is obvious in cases of large-scale physical violence (similarly to the ways in which
individual physical violence can cause individual trauma), and yet, the ways in which human-made

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systems perpetuate trauma is less visible. It is important to remember that those (human-made)
systems are the same systems created by groups with power (the dominant community or culture).
Thus the systems reinforce the power those groups continue to hold. By privileging some groups
and excluding other groups those systems also perpetuate social inequality, which leads to poor
living conditions, reduced opportunities for individuals not in the privileged group, and widespread
poor collective mental health experiences. However, when those groups carry and continue to
experience historical trauma due to previous actions of the dominant group, the aforementioned
horizontal inequalities reinforce and can even increase historical trauma through retraumatization
(as in the US government response to Hurricane Katrina cited above). Additionally, the poor
conditions experienced due to social inequality and reduced opportunity can compound the
potential historical trauma responses of affected communities. And even in the cases where
widespread physical violence occurs to create historical trauma, in subsequent generations, the
same systems and structures that created the conditions for the physical violence are the systems
and structures that continue to privilege one identity group over others and perpetuate power
dynamics, which in turn reinforce historical trauma.
While there are power dynamics between groups that create and/or reinforce historical trauma, it
is similarly important to recognize the ways in which power dynamics create hierarchies within
collective groups that are already experiencing historical trauma at the hands of another group.
Collective identity groups are not homogenous; however, they experience historical trauma
centered around one salient identity or a salient set of identities. Within the group, often hierarchies
are created that afford some amount of privilege to individuals of one subgroup based on an
identity that excludes others with various identities within the already marginalized group. This
may seem counterintuitive: why would those experiencing historical trauma as a result of power
dynamics in turn create, enforce, or support power dynamics that cause further harm for others in
their community? There are a number of reasons for this recreation of internal hierarchy, most of
which fill subconscious, sociopsychological needs of individuals within the communities. When
individuals are members of oppressed groups, they have less social power than the dominant group
and thus less agency (as a group and as individuals embodying the collective identity) to create
social change and/or to make decisions about their own life. Research shows that in many cases,
human beings need agency in directing their own life, and a lack of power or agency can lead to

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feelings of being completely out of control, living a life characterized by instability, insecurity,
and even feelings of hopelessness (Koltko-Rivera, 2006). Yet if there is an opportunity to have
some amount of power, it makes sense that individuals would hold onto that power in order to
mitigate those psychological needs that are not being met due to oppression or the effects of
historical trauma. In other words, in a lot of cases it can reduce the sting of oppression and limit
the extent to which individuals have to consciously deal with the effects of their historical trauma
in their day-to-day life, regardless of the effects on others within their own community.
In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968), educator Paulo Freire writes about the need for individuals
and collectives to feel that they have agency. This need is a basic human need, Freire says, and a
need that is not met when individuals or groups are oppressed in their society - the oppression
disempowers individuals and collectives, creating a scenario where the dominant group (and the
individuals within the group) hold all the power. Yet there are times when individuals within
oppressed groups will engage in thoughts, actions, and/or behaviors that create hierarchies within
the oppressed group itself that resemble the power dynamics of the larger society. These new
hierarchies are not based around specific individuals personally but rather individuals who, along
with holding the collective identity that is being oppressed, hold an additional collective identity
around which they come together. When groups of individuals within the group engage in this
behavior there is the potential for power dynamics to become entrenched within the oppressed
group as well as external to the group, creating scenarios that give individuals with certain
identities within the oppressed group a marginal amount of power within their own setting. The
creation of hierarchies within an oppressed group implies that there are those within the group that
become, in a sense, doubly oppressed and with even less power than others within the same
oppressed group. At times these hierarchies within the oppressed group are imported (consciously
or unconsciously) from the larger society in which the group is already oppressed; for instance,
transphobia exists within LGBTQ spaces in the United States, even though the LGBTQ
community is already a marginalized community. Though it may seem counterintuitive that
marginalized groups would further oppress groups within their own community, in doing so, they
gain some small amount of power - power (or agency) that is a human need, according to Freire
(1968). Seen this way, the increasingly hierarchical power dynamics are logical, though the human
elements and ramifications are no less damaging (and often more) than the initial oppression.

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Those human elements of power hierarchies within oppressed groups may be occurring for another
reason: Freire writes about the internalization of the oppressor by oppressed individuals and
groups. This internalization can be seen in a number of beliefs and mental health indicators within
oppressed groups and can be a piece of a historical trauma response (when present). For example,
studies show that African American children “believe that academic success is something that is
not a part of their culture”, even when parents and institutions within the community attempt to
mitigate the effects of this societal belief (Smith, 2002, p. 29). Beliefs like this one did not originate
within African American communities; rather, the belief that academic success is in opposition to
an African American identity has been imported and internalized from the larger, dominant, white-
privileging society of the United States. Similarly, the denial by many LGBTQ-identified
individuals of their LGBTQ identity before acknowledgment stems from living in a world where
being LGBTQ-identified is non-normative, wrong, and often dangerous. While these beliefs do
not stem from the community itself, it is important to recognize the ways in which such beliefs
become entrenched within oppressed communities to the extent that they retraumatize the
collective and become a central piece of the narrative of historical trauma. In other words, it is not
necessary for someone to tell young African American students that they can never achieve
academic success, or to tell LGBTQ folk that being queer is wrong; the beliefs are such a part of
the narrative of being African American or being queer in the United States that they simply exist
within the system.
Additionally, as the effects of the internalization of the oppressor become entrenched, it is also
possible that these ideas in fact encourage the creation of the internal hierarchies discussed above,
in that the internalized oppressor not only brings beliefs about oneself but also beliefs about others
that reinforce social hierarchies within oppressed groups. For example, modern American
feminism is notorious for its racism: the internalized oppressor can not only convince women that
men are somehow worth more than they are but also that some women’s voices and experiences
are worth more than other women’s voices and experiences on the basis of race (the same is seen
with class, trans identities, etc.), mirroring the dominant society that created the need for feminism
originally. Unfortunately, the hierarchies that are created meet various basic sociopsychological
(individual and collective) needs for those in power within the oppressed group, creating more

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barriers to change and reinforcing the need to recognize the existence of oppression and historical
trauma. Furthermore, the internalized oppressor within individuals in oppressed communities
works to delegitimize the narrative of oppression and trauma, contributing not only to the
perpetuation of trauma but also to the perpetuation of silence around oppression, the practice of
victim-blaming (delegitimization through blaming those who experience oppression for that
oppression), and that of gaslighting (delegitimization through convincing those who experience
oppression that their narrative of oppression, counter to the narrative of dominant society, could
not possibly be real), all from within the oppressed community as well as externally.
Finally, those within the oppressed group who experience a double oppression are experiencing
trauma due to more than one of their collective identities, and very likely due to the intersection of
those identities. In a society where both ‘whiteness’ and ‘maleness’ are privileged, women of color
experience oppression/trauma in both white female spaces and also male spaces of color, on top
of the experience of oppression within the larger society as women of color. The intersectional
identity adds to their experiences of trauma and is retraumatizing, perpetuating multiple systems
through which they are the most affected. Collective identities will often form around these
intersectional identities and experiences, providing space for individuals to find community, and
these collective spaces often hold the trauma narratives of each individual community and the
intersectional identity (following this logic, women of color spaces would hold the trauma
narrative of communities of women, communities of color, and the community of women of color).
Traumatic effects of intersectional identities can be incredibly damaging, as those who experience
intersectional oppression face silencing, victim-blaming, and gaslighting (as defined above) from
many actors, both individually and collectively.
The Role of Structural Violence in Maintaining Power and Trauma
Structural violence has been defined by many scholars, the first being Johan Galtung in Violence,
Peace, and Peace Research (1969). Galtung states that “Violence is present when human beings
are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential
realizations” (1969, p. 168), and defines structural violence as violence that has occurred without
an actor executing the violence. In this way, structural violence can have physical effects,
measured through physical indicators such as health and wellness outcomes, wealth, education,

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and so on. It can also have mental/emotional effects, through mental health and psychological
stress, for instance. Through this definition, the chronic poverty that plagues the world is a form
of structural violence.
Galtung’s definition is a solid foundation, however further evidence proves that structural violence
is not random; the violence that people within the system experience is not a matter of chance.
Rather, structural violence works to perpetuate violence against certain groups of individuals
within the system based on a particular identity, experience, or background (perceived or real),
which maintains the already existing social power dynamics. A more comprehensive definition is
given by Dr. Paul Farmer: “Structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that
put individuals and populations in harm’s way… The arrangements are structural because they are
embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because
they cause injury to people … neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically
given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual
agency” (Farmer, 1999). The structural violence against certain groups of individuals (the
oppression of certain groups) becomes its own self-sustaining system of violence, and it is the
system itself that causes harm.
As might be suspected based on these definitions of structural violence, it is not only intangible
social power dynamics that shape historical trauma. These power dynamics, which ensure only
certain groups are creating laws and policies, are subsequently institutionalized within the more
tangible structures that shape daily life, such as criminal justice systems, welfare systems,
education systems, financial systems, politics, economics, etc. The structural violence within these
systems not only reflects unequal power dynamics within society but cements them as the social
norm, thus perpetuating the power dynamics on a structural level just as much as they are
perpetuated on a societal level. For example, while white, wealthy men have had social power
within the US since its founding, exclusive educational policies, ‘old boy’ networks,
discriminatory lending policies, oppressive housing policies, and a host of other policies within
various sectors of society have also perpetuated the social, political, and economic power of
wealthy, white men. In this example, structural violence is patriarchy, white supremacy, and
classism made (legal) policy. Similar to how patriarchy, white supremacy, and classism (as

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systems of social power) maintain and shape the historical trauma of affected communities, so to
do the structures that cement those systems of social power in tangible laws and policies.
This influence is no longer limited to small communities; local and global structures influence one
another. Globalization has ensured that this institutionalization of power and privilege is not
limited to the local level by individuals with direct interactions with one another. Thus the trauma
that exists in many communities is influenced by the global as well local policies and laws. Though
contextually power and privilege differ based on culture, many local structures are mimicking
larger, global structures as they administer power and privilege based on culturally specific
hierarchies, resulting in the same inequality and unwillingness to acknowledge their influence on
historically traumatized communities. Of the most visible examples of this idea is the UN system.
Among the ways that the UN system has perpetuated hierarchies is through the existence of the
permanent 5 members of the Security council and their access to the veto. Regionally the
permanent five consist of three European countries, one East Asian country, one North American,
and transcontinental Russia who, though largely physically present in Asia is very much perceived
as an additional European presence politically (Tharoor, 2011). The regional disparity created by
placement of the veto power solely on 3 continents further politically isolates the regions who must
politically persuade the permanent five to support their cause when presenting a resolution to the
Council. The countries of Central and South America, Africa, and the MENA region (Middle East
and North Africa) are not represented in the permanent five and thus do not have access to veto
any resolution regardless of its urgency to their region (Annan, 2012, p.142). Consequently, these
countries who are voted in and cycled through the remaining 10 non-permanent member positions
are only able to have their country’s or region’s issues fully represented on the council during their
two year terms. Their influence is then limited to their ability to gather the full support of the
permanent five. Thus only through political maneuvering can historically less-influential countries
gather support for their needs. Though often perceived as innocuous this political maneuvering
serves to harm those countries with less power, maintaining these countries’ disadvantage as well
as the privilege of the countries that implemented the system that functions on political
maneuvering.

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This is evidenced by examining how the countries that are the closest allies of the P5 (i.e. Israel
for the US, Germany for the United Kingdom, Syria for Russia) are able to maintain oppressive
structures within their countries because of these relationships. Using these relationships as cover,
these allies are able to avoid remand for unaddressed oppression, violence, and/or trauma. In the
case of Israel religion and ethnicity (Jew vs. Muslim (or Arab Christian) or Jew vs. Arab) maintain
inequality. In the case of Syria, the Alawite have historically been oppressed throughout the
Islamic world but were able to leverage French control in Syria to dominate politically and
economically. In the US case, racism and racist structures, as they determine access to land, wealth,
and labor, have maintained inequality and perpetuated trauma quite literally from the country’s
birth as the US.
The systems that maintain these hierarchies are not simply changed as their goals are woven into
the essence of the society, whether through founding documents, constitutions, mission statements,
etc. Through the maintenance of these structures some groups are able to maintain power through
existing hierarchies over others. As long as systems are unchallenged by those that influence them,
groups whose power appears in oppressive structures will maintain historical trauma in groups
they influence. State sovereignty is frequently used as the rationale for avoiding systemic change.
The right of the sovereign state often halts discussions about when and where external forces can
challenge internal inequities and trauma. It is this concept that some forms of governance
supersede individual (and group) rights, yet because states (in this case read structures, any form
of governance, and any human system) are run by humans, those with access to developing and
amending state laws and policies will continue to maintain the status quo, which is generally to
their benefit. Only when there is an acknowledgment of the existence of the system and effort to
create equality (or equity) can there be a counter to the hierarchies that have historically
perpetuated and maintained trauma.
How Structural Violence Affects Historical Trauma (Figure 2)
This chart was developed as a representation of the interactions between structural violence and
historical trauma. It deals with the overarching concepts, rather than case-specific examples, so
that it may be used to identify how these concepts present in many contexts. In the creation of this
chart the authors drew on their knowledge of systems thinking, a theoretical tool used to identify