Characterizing Mechanisms of Intergenerational Violence and Trauma

Background and Purpose: Emerging research on trauma and epigenetics within social work has led to observations about the role of genetics in the intergenerational transmission of violence and trauma. A nuanced understanding of the mechanisms by which violence, trauma, and its correlates may be passed down from caregivers to infants provides an important context for devising interventions to promote resiliency and disrupt a cycle of transgenerational violence. This presentation examines the contrasting roles of additive genetic, common environmental, and unique environmental pathways that link parental trauma and early infant mental health. It addresses the known mechanisms through which parental traumatic stress may be recapitulated in the developmental outcomes of children, which can result in two generations that: i) endure elevated levels of stress; ii) experience violence in its many forms – emotional, physical, sexual, or structural; iii) develop higher rates of adverse behavioral health outcomes; and iv) are disproportionally affected by poverty, oppression, and discrimination.

Methods: This presentation is based on a systematic review and synthesis of extant literature on intergenerational trauma from a wide array of sources.  Databases including PubMed, CINAHL Complete, Proquest, and Scopus were searched using the keywords trauma, social work, violence, resilience, historical, genetic, intergenerational, transmission, perinatal, mental health, and psychopathology. Papers identified using this strategy were evaluated for their description of mechanisms linking trauma in the parental generation to trauma among children.

 

Results: Causal factors that have been implicated in transgenerational violence and trauma include gene-environment correlation (inherited maternal traits, such as trait anxiety or trait impulsivity, that correlate with parenting behaviors such as blunted affective responses to infant cues); gene-environment interaction (inherited vulnerability to the adverse consequences of trauma); and unique environmental influences including changes in the maternal epigenome that result from violence and trauma and thereby confer genetic predisposition to adverse child outcomes or a lower threshold to withstand stress in childhood. Finally, common environmental pathways of intergenerational transmission include rearing experience that is recapitulated in successive generations, historical trauma and other collective experiences of oppression and discrimination that affect entire families and communities. Results from this literature review identified that the majority of studies focused on transgenerational violence and trauma have focused solely on gene-environment interaction factors or on unique environmental influences (the epigenome). A consistent finding all studies analyzed for this review identified the importance of early secure attachment as a potential buffer or vulnerability for infant mental health.

 

Conclusions and Implications: Characterization of the specific causal mechanisms through which genetic and environmental influences potentiate transgenerational violence and trauma critically informs and qualifies a more comprehensive understanding of social welfare interventions that may promote resilience in women and infants. Interventions focused solely on individual-level traits may be inadequate to protect young families when trans-generational factors are at play.  This appraisal of the accumulated knowledge base across disparate disciplines—including genetic epidemiology, developmental psychology, and social sciences—highlights major opportunity for the potential impact of targeted interventions that promote enduring improvements in perinatal mental health, caregiver-infant synchrony, and infant mental health.