Second generation to Holocaust Survivors: Enhanced differentiation of trauma transmission

Second generation to Holocaust Survivors is a description of a segment of society, as well as an attempt at characterizing these individuals. It is common to speak of mechanisms of transmission of trauma as characterizing the dynamics of the second generation. This paper intends to advance differentiation between two kinds of transmission of trauma: direct transmission (also called transposition) and indirect transmission. There seems to be some confusion in this realm, since there is some discrepancy between clinical and the experimental publications: Whereas the first usually presents evidence of direct transmission of trauma in the second generation, the second mostly demonstrates indirect transmission. We shall present a clinical account of group therapy demonstrating indirect transmission, proposing a distinction between second-generation individuals owing to the relative dominance of each of the mechanisms in their mental structuring. This distinction has significant clinical consequences.