Holocaust Survivors in Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox Jewish populations

This article reports on Holocaust survivorship amongst Hasidim and ultra-Orthodox groups. The role of the social and religious set in organizing response to the Holocaust is traced. Unique dream phenomena in this group, with brief clinical vignettes, is provided. Often recurring clinical syndromes in the Hasidic Survivor population are discussed. A detailed case history with 'a strategic therapeutic approach is provided, and other treatment considerations are explored. The response possibilities of the system memory in traumatized individuals are outlined, and the centrality of activity-passivity conflicts in Survivors is noted.     

The Phenomenology of Posttraumatic Distress in Older Adult Holocaust Survivors

This paper focuses on the effects of the Holocaust on its survivors more than 55 years after the end of World War II. The emphasis is on survivors who were either adults during the Holocaust and who are now over the age of 70, or survivors who were children during the Holocaust and whose age is now between 56 and 70. The central question was: What kinds of posttraumatic phenomena are seen in older adult survivors? After an overview of the field, the situation of survivors in Israel is presented in 2 ways. Results of a survey of survivors who were referred to Amcha, the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust, is provided to give some insight in a clinical population. In addition, 2 case histories of survivors are presented to give a more in-depth perspective. The gap between the data from the questionnaires and the clinical material has relevance for the way in which we conceptualize the late consequences of massive trauma.     

Contaminated Generativity: Holocaust Survivors and Their Children in Germany

This paper addresses the trauma transfer from survivors of the Shoah to the Second Generation in Germany. What does it mean for both generations to beget children after Auschwitz? This necessarily entails perceiving non-Jewish Germans and their way of dealing with history. Survivors cannot live without their memory, nor is it possible for them to conceive of a life unencumbered by this constant “contaminant”. It is not possible to integrate the persecution experiences. On the contrary, decades after liberation, dissociated elements of traumatic memories penetrate everyday experiences, thought, affect and imagination as contaminants. Occasionally, these fragments of persecution experiences, like “encapsulated memories” hidden in crypts suddenly break open and frighten the survivors themselves and even more so the people around them.     

The Holocaust and Its Effects on Survivors: An Overview

The Nazi Holocaust has had continuing and widely reverberating consequences not only for the Jewish survivors but for the world at large. These consequences are detailed, first through a personal account of an Auschwitz survivor, and then through a discussion of the adaptive measures of concentration camp inmates and the long-term psychiatric and psychological effects on survivors and their families. The Survivor or Concentration Camp Syndrome and its relationship to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is described. Indirect effects of the Holocaust have been manifested in various ways, particularly through various levels of psychologic denial displayed by Holocaust criminals and (at least during the early postwar period) by the German public. The Holocaust has had profound effects on the ways the Jewish people regard themselves and are seen by others. Finally, the Holocaust can be seen as offering a kind of paradigmatic signature to the worldview of the end of the 20th century, emphasizing the persistence of evil and the limitations of the idea of progress.     

Nonmentalizing States in Early-Childhood Survivors of the Holocaust: Developmental Considerations Regarding Treatment of Child Survivors of Genocidal Atrocities

This paper attempts to coalesce considerations of attachment processes, trauma, mentalization, and nonverbal behavior to underscore some of the developmental and therapeutic challenges demonstrated by older-adult child survivors of the Holocaust, and by implication, other child victims of similar genocidal and traumatic events. Young child survivors experienced not only their own traumatic exposure to violence, harm, and loss, but also the stress-transmission of the adult caregivers who raised them in the years that followed. For some, the horrendous losses, combined with impediments to organizing relationships, and to experiences of predictable and trusted continuities, negatively impact the development of the reflective function, and of interpretive skills basic to successful implicit relatedness and explicit exchanges. "Neutral flow" of bodily tension and shape often signals the freezing accompanying nonmentalizing states. Misalignments in individual personality structure and discordances in interpersonal exchange underscore the need to address fundamental building blocks of relatedness and mentalization in the therapeutic process.     

Observations on the First International Conference on Children of Holocaust Survivors

This first large-scale gathering of children of Holocaust survivors revealed — more from the unanticipated group process of the conference than from its official proceedings — that the second generation seeks a collective identity subordinate neither to the older generation of parents nor of mental-health authorities. Vital moments of tension and reconciliation at the conference between the children's self-help movement (with a sizable membership of young mental-health professionals) and distinguished mental-health experts indicated the legitimacy of intergenerational encounter and the place that it will likely be accorded in future meetings.     

Transformation of Perception of Trauma by Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Group Therapy

Intensive work with child survivors of the Holocaust has made us aware of the clinical importance of understanding the ways children perceive their traumas and the conclusions they draw about how they must live their lives. When these perceptions are transformed congruently with the child's development, the survivors can cope quite well. In this paper we refer to now middle-aged survivors who are still guided by their child perceptions. We will describe how we have used conjoint group psychotherapy to facilitate processes of transformation even at this late stage. The model we provide for trauma work with Holocaust survivors whose traumatization occurred decades ago may well provide tools to reduce future suffering of children who are victims of massive traumatization today.     

Facing the Holocaust in Generations of Families of Survivors: The Case of Partial Relevance and Interpersonal Values

This qualitative study examined the meaning of the Holocaust for 10 Israeli families of survivors in which there are three generations. Thirty-two individuals (24 women, 8 men) were asked to tell their life story. The interviews were analyzed for themes related to PR (Partial Relevance, Bar-On & Selah, 1991) and the interpersonal values held by family members, using SYMLOG methods (Bales, 1999). The first generation agreed on the importance of the value of family teamwork and showed medium to high range PR scores. The second and the third generations showed low, medium, and high range PR scores and tended to value both family teamwork and more non- conforming behavior.     

Facilitated and real trauma in the psychoanalysis of children of Holocaust survivors

The author investigates the effect of retraumatization on the children of Holocaust survivors who have appropriated their parents' trauma through unconscious identification. The author proposes that the working through of the real trauma results in a mitigation of the transmitted trauma in the psychic reality and mobilizes the work of mourning that facilitates the mastery of the real as well as the transmitted trauma. Two case examples are cited as illustration.     

Marital conflicts in the home when children are present versus absent

Characteristics of marital conflict when children (8-16 years) were present versus absent were compared on the basis of 47 mothers' and fathers' reports during a 15-day period. Mothers described 669 incidents of marital conflict, and fathers described 551 incidents. About two thirds of the conflicts occurred in children's absence. Contrary to predictions, conflicts in which children were present were more negative (e.g., more negative emotions, more destructive conflict tactics) and more often about children than were child-absent conflicts. Although parents may attempt to protect children from conflict exposure, children tend to be exposed to a relatively hostile and emotionally negative subset of the marital conflicts that occur in the home.     

Separation-individuation in late adolescence: an investigation of gender and ethnic differences

Gender and ethnic differences in separation-individuation were assessed in a sample of 125 male and 175 female undergraduates (M age = 19.56, SD = 1.29) self-identified as White, African American, Hispanic, or Asian. Measures used included a demographic questionnaire and the Separation-Individuation Test of Adolescence (SITA; J. B. Levine, C. J. Green, & T. Millon, 1986; J. B. Levine & S. Saintogne, 1993). Except for results showing a greater tendency among the men to shun dependent ties and a superior capacity for forming close peer attachments among the women, separation-individuation development tended to be indistinguishable between the genders. Additional findings suggest that (a) Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans are more concerned with engulfment fears and needs for nurturance than Whites are; (b) Asians are more apt to shun dependent ties than Whites are; and (c) compared with Whites, African Americans anticipate rejection more and are less adept at forming close attachments with teachers.     

The Holocaust after 70 years: Holocaust survivors in the United States

Over 70 years, there have been different narratives of the Holocaust survivors coming to the United States. Survivors’ stories begin with an event of major historical significance. Difficulties in conceptualizing historical trauma, along with common distortions and myths about Holocaust survivors and their children are examined. This article proposes that it is impossible to discuss the consequences of extreme suffering without consideration of historical meaning and social context with which they are entwined. The evolution of the social representation of the Holocaust and the contradictions in clinical attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described. Attributions to survivors and their children with consideration of the future is described.     

Separation-individuation phenomena in adulthood: general concepts and the fifth individuation

The elaboration of separation-individuation theory in the years beyond childhood has been a psychoanalytic focus for several decades. In this paper, the nature of separation-individuation phenomena in adulthood and the terminology and controversy surrounding the use of the terms third, fourth, and fifth individuation are considered first; a detailed elaboration of the concept of the fifth individuation in late adulthood follows.     

Separation-individuation as a family transactional process in the transition to parenthood

This is a study of the impact of prebirth level of parental and marital individuation on the course of parent-infant and infant development during the first postnatal year. Support was found for the first hypothesis, namely, that a couple's composite individuation profile, taking into account the prebirth separation-individuation of the father and the mother, and their marriage, would be associated with positive infant development and parent-infant transactions related to separation-individuation and mutuality during the first postnatal year. A second hypothesis, that maternal individuation would most strongly predict infant and parent-infant development at 6 months, while paternal individuation would emerge at 1 year as a strong predictor, was not supported. It was found instead that prebirth maternal and paternal individuation were equally strong predictors at six months, while maternal individuation was the primary predictor at 12 months. Other findings on the direct and indirect associations between prebirth parental and marital individuation and postnatal parent-infant transactions suggest that early separation-individuation processes result from a complex configuration of triadic mother-father-infant transactions.     

Confronting the Holocaust in Religious Education

Studies of Holocaust education in secondary schools have tended to focus on how the subject is taught as part of the history curriculum. Comparatively little work of either a theoretical or an empirical nature has looked at how the subject is handled in other curricular areas. Religious education is a case in point, for the field is marked both by a dearth of literature on appropriate content and by a virtual absence of research on teachers' practices. The need to address these lacunae provides the rationale for the article. In relation to content, two concerns dominate the discussion. The first is that the Holocaust may be portrayed as an act of religious intolerance; the second is that students may be offered a diluted or distorted account of the part played by Christianity. The empirical core of the article surveys the practices of 28 teachers of religious education in connection with both concerns. It also contains a content analysis of how textbooks used by the teachers treat the attempted annihilation of European Jewry. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings.