A FAMILY THERAPEUTIC APPROACH TO TRANSGENERATIONAL TRAUMATIZATION

The phenomenon of transgenerational traumatization has currently becom e widely recognized and described, although the task of disentangling the underlying interactional mechanisms remains a difficult one. These transgenerational mechanisms were first detected in families of the s urvivors of the Holocaust, but they may be equally prominent in famili es of parents who have been traumatized in other ways, for example, as victims of child neglect and abuse, as orphaned children, or during m ilitary service. In cases in which parents have themselves been subjec ted to early parental deprivation, one or more children may become pro jectively identified with a parent's (posttraumatic) ''bad child''-sel f, whereas the parent him/herself has identified with -enacts the role of- the idealized internal ''martyr'' parent. A case study is present ed describing the individual and family therapeutic treatment of a wom an who, as a child, had been, traumatically separated from her parents .