Intergenerational Trauma and Attachment Across Cultures

Nancy Pratt, CMHC

Question

Under what conditions do you allow a First Grader (age 6) to walk to school alone?

AbstractTrauma shapes attachment differently across cultures. Genocide, systematic family separation, poverty, and value systems each impact the way attachment is developed and expressed. This presentation will explore information gathered about shifts in attachment through the generations from interviews and discussions in Africa, Asia, Europe, and US Military installations.

Learning Objectives -identify common themes impacting attachment across cultures

-increase knowledge about attachment disruption in military family culture -Consider the impact of broad trauma such as war, genocide, and national poverty on the way attachment is viewed and measured -Challenge culturally-centric views of attachment in order to increase understanding of clients in an increasingly diverse population

Regarding AttachmentDesigned by evolution to increase survival

(Bowlby, 1988)

Ainsworth: Strange Situation normed in Boston and Uganda, Secure base, attachment styles defined, behavior on reunification is more significant than behavior at separation. (Ainsworth, 1978)

Regarding CultureWhat aspects of parent-child relationships change from

culture to culture?

Food, resources, eye contact, carrying, nursing, norms, role of extended family and community, value systems, religion, schooling, gender roles, social and romantic relationship development

Collectivistic vs. Independence

Regarding TraumaTrauma treatments: TF-CBT, EMDR, CPP, ARC

Each involve establishing “safe space” based on personal history.

Each involve identifying and processing specific traumatic events.

How do you approach treatment when there is no personal history of “safe space” and no specific traumatic event?

How do we treat intergenerational trauma?

Narratives in Intergenerational TraumaHow does trauma look in the generation impacted? (School Shootings? 9/11?)

How does trauma look in the first generation of descendants? (Rwandan Genocide?)

How does trauma look in the 3rd generation? (Holocaust? Ryukyuan genocide?)

How does trauma look in the 7th generation? (Native Americans? Missouri extermination order?)

At some point maybe we need to understand for each cultural group, or subcultural group, what are the dangers they have experienced historically, in this place, where they live, because that history of dangers will inform what they think is important in child-rearing. Crittenden 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UA9sptsCPc 17:05

Culture and Trauma

How does your culture’s trauma history impact your

value system?

Attachment and TraumaBecause a caregiver can be physically present and emotionally absent, Bowlby theorized that the attachment figure’s availability was not just accessibility, but also emotional responsiveness (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975).

Culture and Attachment❖ Culture informs the way people interact with each other, and cultural values inform the social norms

parents reinforce with their children. ❖ Different parenting behaviors and cultural norms affect attachment between infant and caregiver. ❖ This creates differences in developmental timeline and even different phases for infants from different

cultures. ❖ Cultural values and expectations have an effect on attachment that makes infants from different

cultures appear delayed or deficient. ❖ It is important to consider the variations of parenting behavior and expectations when considering

attachment theory. ❖ Assuming that Bowlby’s attachment theories are universal can have negative effects on assessing

attachment.

Global (8 countries)

USA Korea Japan

Avoidant 21% 21% 1% 0%

Secure 65% 67% 78% 68%

Resistant 14% 12% 21% 32%

IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988

Challenging Ethnocentric Views of Attachment

How do we guard against labeling cultural variance in attachment as pathology?

When does adaptive become maladaptive?

How do you help parents and families make appropriate adjustments while honoring the trauma, sacrifices, and values that define them?

What happens to the parent child relationship when a parent who was raised in a society that has adapted to a particular trauma narrative relocates to a place that does not share that narrative and does not honor the values the culture of origin has in place to cope with that narrative?

Cultural ConsiderationsUS military culture and attachment: I don’t know where parent is and I don’t know when they are coming home. What’s more, there is a real chance they won’t come home.

Eastern and Western values: Individuation vs Collectivism

Resource availability and survival

Emigration/Immigration and cross generation shifts: How does the child perceive and respond to the variance in parent experience versus the “new culture” value system?

Question

Under what conditions do you allow a First Grader (age 6) to walk to school alone?

● USA- proximity to home, weather, maturity of child, safety of community● Japan- bus, train, large distances navigated independently● Ghana- does the community have a school? A child in a uniform is

generally safe from abduction. A child without is not. ● Rwanda- You don’t.● US Military Base- secure closed community, expectation is that parent

walks child to school.

Moving ForwardEntire cultures shift in response to broad traumas in order to facilitate coping and survival. Just as with individuals, some of these adaptations are functional and sustainable, and others may become damaging over the generations. As trauma impacts value systems and changes parent-child relationships, clinicians need to challenge their own judgments surrounding the definition of healthy attachment in order to assess and address the function and efficacy of attachment for the clients they are serving.

ReferencesAinsworth, M.D.S. (1967), Infancy in Uganda: Infant care and the growth of love, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Ainsworth, M.D.S., Blehar,, M.C., Waters, E., &Wall, 5. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A Psychological study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1: Attachment. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Bowlby, J. (1979). The making and breaking of affectional bonds. London: Tavistock.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: parent-child attachment and healthy human development. New York: Basic Books.

Cole, P. M., Bruschi, C. J., & Tamang, B. L. (2002). Cultural Differences in Childrens Emotional Reactions to Difficult Situations. Child Development,73(3), 983-996.doi:10.1111/1467-8624.00451

Ijzendoorn, M. H., & Kroonenberg, P. M. (1988). Cross-Cultural Patterns of Attachment: A Meta-Analysis of the Strange Situation. Child Development,59(1), 147. doi:10.2307/1130396

Keller, H. (2012). Attachment and Culture. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,44(2), 175-194. doi:10.1177/0022022112472253

ReferencesLieberman, A. F., & Ippen, C. G. (2015). Dont Hit My Mommy A Manual For Child-Parent Psychotherapy With Young Children Exposed to Violence and Other Trauma. Zero to Three.

Lieberman, A. F., & Zeanah, C. H. (1999). Contributions of attachment theory to infant- parent psychotherapy and other interventions with infants and young children. In J. Cassidy & P.R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and the concept of conditional strategies. Human Development, 33, 48-61.

Mahler, M., Pine, F., & Bergman, A. (1975). The psychological birth of the human infant. New York: Basic Books

Otto, H., Potinius, I., & Keller, H. (2013). Cultural Differences in Stranger–Child Interactions. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,45(2), 322-334. doi:10.1177/0022022113509133

Takahashi, K. (1986). Examining the strange-situation procedure with Japanese mothers and 12-month-old infants. Development Psychology. 22. 265-270

PostCard images are from postsecret.com. PostSecret is an ongoing project created by Frank Warren in 2005, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard.