Week 5: Intergenerational Trauma & Confidence
Block One
Session Theme: what intergenerational trauma is, how it is transmitted, and its effects.
Learning Goals:
Participants will increase their knowledge of intergenerational trauma and how it relates to our previous sessions.
Participants will learn strategies for coping with intergenerational trauma.
Participants will learn about “breaking the cycle.”
Major Takeaways
- Intergenerational trauma was first documented by a Canadian psychiatrist Vivian M. Rakoff, who observed it in the behaviour of children of the Jewish holocaust survivors. Groups of people like Africans, Natives and those who survived the Jewish holocaust all have the recipe of having intergenerational trauma.
- It must be acknowledged for it to be healed
- Many of us (the black community) have unresolved trauma from slavery within us
- Healing can take many forms, including clinical therapy, spiritual intervention etc.
Many resources in the city can be of service to assist in healing intergenerational trauma.
Breaking the cycle is necessary to ensure the end of the transmission
Keywords
Trauma: is defined as an experience or an event a person is directly involved in or witnesses that creates distinctive feelings of fear, helplessness, loss of safety, horror, and so on to mentally or physically harm the individual (Cohn & Morrison, 2018). Generational trauma is the children of trauma survivors who also experience mental or physical harm like their parents, even if they have never endured a trauma. It can occur in families of genocide survivors, oppressed cultures, child and domestic abuse survivors, or even children whose parents suffered from a terrible car accident. The question researchers within the field find easier to ask than the answer is how does this happen? Patterson, 2021)
Intergenerational Trauma: trauma experienced in a previous generation that continues to be passed down through genetics and word of mouth until it is consciously and deliberately healed.
Post-trauma Stress Disorder: a disorder that develops in some people who have experienced a shocking, scary, or dangerous event. (national institute of mental health)
Healing: the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again. (google definition)
Therapy: treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. (google definition)
Somatic: relating to the body, especially as distinct from the mind. (google definition)
Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another (google Definition)
Compassion: sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. (google definition)
Stress: a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances
Breaking the cycle: ending the cycle of intergenerational trauma for your bloodline/ lineage and future children
Quantum Entanglement: the phenomenon whereby a pair of particles are generated so that the individual quantum states of each are indefinite until measured, and measuring one determines the result of measuring the other, even when at a distance from each other. (google definition)
Block Two
Theme: We will discuss confidence and the conscious and subconscious effects of white supremacy on the confidence of Black people.
Learning Goals:
Participants will be able to identify loud and subtle ways the system of white supremacy affects one's confidence, directly impacting our decision-making.
Participants will discuss and engage in activities that promote self-confidence and self-assurance.
Keywords
confidence (n.) Etymology:
c. 1400, "assurance or belief in the goodwill, veracity (habitual truthfulness.) etc. of another," directly from Latin confidentia, from confidentem: "firmly trusting, bold," present participle of confidere "to have full trust or reliance,"
noun
• the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
• the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.
• a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's abilities or qualities
• Inner knowledge (Oxford Definition)
• a feeling or consciousness of one's powers or reliance on one's circumstances
• the quality or state of being certain
• a relation of trust or intimacy (Miriam Webster Definition)
Major Takeaways
The process to just "Be" can be a continuous journey for most in our lifetime
To be confident or exist in a confident state will constantly be challenged
Find something firm to stand on (a truth) that cannot be altered or changed despite exterior circumstances
By having a root, fixed truth, you will always have a baseline to return to and ground yourself when your environment triggers feelings of insecurity
