Two case vignettes are presented in order to illustrate the potentially adverse consequences of parental unresolved loss, ongoing refugee trauma, and subsequent disrupted caregiving. Theoretical and empirical evidence is presented in order to understand the overt and the subtle behavioral and emotional disruptions within the parent-child dyad brought on by or associated with a parental trauma history and how this may affect children’s psychosocial wellbeing and mental health. Transgenerational trauma often shows itself in repeated patterns (stories) of personal healing issues in each generation.

Such events can affect an individual, multiple family members, or larger community, cultural, racial, ethnic, or other groups. It is defined as trauma that gets passed down (transfers) to younger generations from those who directly experience a traumatic event. In some cases these unhealed issues can continue for thousands of years. Transgenerational trauma is also called inter- or multigenerational trauma. It particularly looks at the transgenerational trauma. Transgenerational trauma is the notion of unhealed issues of prior generations being expressed in current generations. The present chapter aims to explore the interactions between parental traumatization, attachment representations, and caregiving behavior in understanding processes of transgenerational trauma transmission in refugee families. This fact sheet outlines issues of intergenerational trauma, transgenerational and collective trauma.

The transgenerational transmission of refugee trauma refers to the phenomenon in which children are transformed and sometimes affected by their parents’ traumatic experiences from the past and by their parents’ current posttraumatic symptoms.