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It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

scienceandnonduality.com

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Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#11

Post by rigobert_slim »

johnchristopher wrote: post #5
jschwartzi wrote: post #3

I'm skeptical that there isn't some undercurrent of suggestion in the way the therapist keeps pulling in family history. There's something of a just-so-story in how each of his patients seems to have some "inherited" trauma. I'm willing to concede that it's possible that this is the case, but the vignettes in the article involve no small amount of magical thinking.

The problem I see here is the over reliance on Freud and Jung and epigenetic. Freud's misconceptions aren't needed to explain how behaviour and anxiety can trickle down from a generation to the next and epigenetic has nothing to do with skeletons in the closet. Behavioural therapy, CBT and `modern` approaches do a much better job at modelling all this. (I wouldn't be surprised if we see more epigenetic and less quant…

Freud's biggest contextual problem was outlined by Alice Miller in most of her works, notably "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware" and "Drama of the Gifted Child".

It was basically that Freud was suffering from his own unresolved childhood traumas and avoiding them forced him to narrate his theories from the perspective that the parent was innocent and the child was guilty, especially when discussing the treatment of seemingly misbehaved children.

Unfortunately, this continued to be the main perspective in psychoanalysis and child development until the late 1970's/early 1980's

She gives an explanation in its simplest form in a 1987 interview with OMNI Publications International:

Traditional analysis, says Miller, duplicates the parent-child relationship with the conventional analyst in the position of power. [...] The child undergoes a long inner struggle “between the fear of losing the person he loves if he remains true to himself, and panic at the prospect of losing himself if he has to deny who he is. A child cannot resolve a conflict of this nature and is forced to conform because he cannot survive by himself. Therapy should not repeat this condition.”

fascinating read if anyone's interested, especially when she describes the first time she discussed this to a conference of psychoanalysts:

http://www.alice-miller.com/en/the-feeling-child/

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#14

Post by insickness »

kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

There's evidence on experiments with mice that they inherit their parent's fears epigenetically.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/15/mice-inhe...

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#15

Post by alanwatts »

kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

Many people are naturally scared of spiders and snakes. Some evolutionary psychologists like Dr. Paul Ekman claim that some fears like these are coded into our genetics because of the many of our ancestors before us who were killed by them.

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#16

Post by throwanem »

insickness wrote: post #14
kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

There's evidence on experiments with mice that they inherit their parent's fears epigenetically. http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/11/15/mice-inhe...

At least there's a plausible route and mechanism there. How do you see this applying to an uncle?

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#17

Post by ams6110 »

kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

magical thinking

These two words describe most of psychology. It's not a science[1]. I've always thought that people who study psychology are just trying to figure themselves out.

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-...

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#18

Post by dominotw »

kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

>How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born?

Is it much different from elephants being born with 'genetic memory' of migratory routes that their forefathers took

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jan/13/conservat...

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#19

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

jschwartzi wrote: post #3

I'm skeptical that there isn't some undercurrent of suggestion in the way the therapist keeps pulling in family history. There's something of a just-so-story in how each of his patients seems to have some "inherited" trauma. I'm willing to concede that it's possible that this is the case, but the vignettes in the article involve no small amount of magical thinking.

I'm not sure I would even call it an undercurrent:

> I listened closely as Jesse spoke. What stood out for me was one unusual detail—he’d been extremely cold, “freezing” he said, just prior to the first episode. I began to explore this with Jesse, and asked him if anyone on either side of the family suffered a trauma that involved being “cold,” or being “asleep,” or being “nineteen.”

This is pretty much indistinguishable from the sort of cold reading technique used by "psychics" and "mediums" [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading#The_Forer_effect_...

Re: It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

#20

Post by nommm-nommm »

alanwatts wrote: post #15
kstenerud wrote: post #8

"A boy may have his grandpa’s long legs and a girl may have her mother’s nose, but Jesse had inherited his uncle’s fear of never waking" Wait.. what?? How could Jesse inherit something from an uncle who had died before he was born? This whole article feels too much like magical thinking.

Many people are naturally scared of spiders and snakes. Some evolutionary psychologists like Dr. Paul Ekman claim that some fears like these are coded into our genetics because of the many of our ancestors before us who were killed by them.

That doesn't explain phobias of totally non dangerous things though so it feels like a "just so story."
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