Healing can happen but no wound heals instantaneously. It can take walking back and forth over the same frozen ground. Intervention is often necessary. The more serious the injury, the more extensive the treatment and medicine and some things can never fully heal. The damage done by genocide is the most extreme. Not only does this affect the bodies, hearts, and minds of the victims, but it also damages the hearts, minds, and souls of the perpetrator. (Please read the pages in the 1st section, Harm, for an explanation of why we are speaking about genocide.)

Although expert healers are essential, for those of us of European descent the first step is to stop, to learn, and understand the devastation that our ancestors perpetrated. We also need to come to terms with how we ourselves are complicit while still trusting ourselves enough to commit, act and persevere in doing whatever we can to right the wrongs. Only then can we create the world we dream of, a world free of oppression where everyone can live up to their full potential, where we are all right and one with all creation. This true, real Love is the first motion because when you really love another you automatically wish peace and justice for them.

We can begin with the lesson most children are taught, that if you want to be in good relationship with someone you hurt, you need to stop, “fess up”, apologize and not do it any more. BUT you can’t acknowledge the hurt, the crime (“fess up”) until you really understand the depth, breadth, length and extent of the wrongdoing that is your responsibility to correct. In order to do this, along with your own research read the previous section on harm and consider ancestral, trans-generational trauma.

Ancestral trauma

Ancestral trauma, trans-generational trauma, or intergenerational trauma is a psychological term that describes how trauma can be transferred in between generations. In 1966, psychologists began to observe large numbers of children of Holocaust survivors seeking mental help in clinics in Canada. The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors were overrepresented by 300% among the referrals to a psychiatry clinic in comparison with their representation in the general population. (Fossion P, Rejas MC, Servais L, Pelc I, Hirsch S (2003). “Family approach with grandchildren of Holocaust survivors”. American Journal of Psychotherapy. 57 (4): 519–27.)

This trauma can create a loss of identity and meaning, which in turn may affect generations upon generations, ingraining the trauma into the whole society. This affects Black Americans, because of both the slavery and racial oppression experienced by their ancestors. Descendants of slaves when faced with racism-motivated violence, micro-aggressions, or outward racism, react as if they were faced with the original trauma that was generationally transmitted to them. Especially affected by this are Indigenous communities in North America. This theory works well to explain why some Native American individuals are subjected to a wide variety of substantial difficulties.

In 1998,  Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Ph.D., (a Native American social worker, associate professor and mental health expert) and Lemyra DeBruyn, Ph.D. (Behavioral Scientist/Medical Anthropologist) used the research on ancestral trauma of Jewish Holocaust survivors and their descendants to research American Indian experiences. The two researchers found that the massive losses of lives, land, and culture from European contact and colonization resulted in a long legacy of chronic trauma and unresolved grief across generations. This phenomenon, labeled historical unresolved grief, contributes to the current social pathology of high rates of suicide, homicide, domestic violence, child abuse, alcoholism and other social problems among American Indians.

The paper below describes the concept of historical unresolved grief and historical trauma among American Indians, outlining the historical as well as present social and political forces that exacerbate it. The abundant literature on Jewish Holocaust survivors and their children is used to delineate the intergenerational transmission of trauma, grief, and the survivor’s child complex. Interventions based on traditional American Indian ceremonies and modern western treatment modalities for grieving and healing of those losses are described.