Dissertations and Theses
Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Sasha Rudenstine
Second Advisor
Steven Tuber
Third Advisor
Diana Puñales Morejon
Keywords
Intergenerational trauma, historical trauma, intergenerational transmission of trauma, psychodynamic psychotherapy, therapist phenomenology, Holocaust trauma
Abstract
The intergenerational transmission of trauma (ITT) has been investigated since the 1960s, beginning with research on the descendants of Holocaust survivors. Few qualitative studies, however, have taken up how psychodynamic therapists experience their treatments with adult patients with ITT. This study uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (APA) to analyze adult ITT treatments from the perspective of psychodynamic psychotherapists. Ten licensed clinicians in the NYC tri-state area participated in semi-structured interviews, which were organized around three research aims: how clinicians conceptualized and identified ITT, what effective clinical interventions they used, and how they understood the impact of therapist-patient sameness or difference (regarding social location and therapist ITT history) on treatment. Clinicians conceptualized ITT as an internal collapse of the self and other (the “potential space” à la Winnicott, 1971), where a parents’ history and the child’s present were undifferentiated. ITT identification involved detecting affect and unconscious errands that were related to historical trauma. Another finding suggested that ITT symptoms may represent reparative efforts by the child of survivors to share in their parent's emotional burden. Successful interventions involved reestablishing differentiation through a sturdy therapeutic presence that prevented a reenactment of ITT and also involved containment and slowly integrating the unprocessed affects into an ITT historical narrative. Clinicians often emphasized the importance of differences between themselves and patients (as opposed to identity matching) to avoid enmeshment. The therapist’s temperament, including modesty, self-awareness, and self-doubt, also reoccurred. These therapist traits may be important for ITT treatment by reestablishing a new type of relationship that was intimate, trusting, and that maintained the potential space between therapist and patient that had been blurred between patient and parent.
Recommended Citation
Halper, Shaun J., "Shared Burden, Potential Space: A Qualitative Study of How Psychodynamic Therapists Work with Intergenerational Transmission of Historical Trauma" (2026). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1327
