Understanding The Transgenerational Legacy Of Totalitarian Regimes

Understanding the Transgenerational Legacy of Totalitarian Regimes examines the ways in which the cultural memory of surviving totalitarianism can continue to shape individual and collective vulnerabilities as well as build strength and resilience in subsequent generations. The author uses her personal experience of growing up in the former Soviet Union and professional expertise in global trauma to explore how the psychological legacy of totalitarian regimes influences later generations’ beliefs, behaviors, and social and political choices. The book offers interdisciplinary perspectives on the complex aftermath of societal victimization in different cultures and discusses survivors’ experiences. Readers will find practical tools that can be used in family therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and peace building to recognize and challenge preconceived assumptions stemming from cultural trauma. This book equips trauma-minded mental health professionals with an understanding of the transgenerational toxicity of totalitarianism and with strategies for becoming educated consumers of cultural legacy.

The only comprehensive text to focus on trauma, stress, crisis, and disaster counseling from a clinical practice perspective This overarching text, intended both for mental health practitioners-in-training and for practicing clinicians, focuses on the impact of stress, crisis, trauma, and disaster on diverse populations across the lifespan as well as on effective treatment strategies. The second edition is newly grounded in a "trauma scaffold," providing foundational information that therapists can build upon, step-by-step, to treat individuals affected by more complex trauma events. This resource newly addresses the mental health implications of COVID-19, which has had an enormous impact on multitudes of people since the beginning of the pandemic, its repercussions likely to continue for some time into the future. The text also is updated to provide the most recent diagnostic information regarding trauma in the DSM-5. Two new chapters address the confluence of crises related to anthropogenic climate change and the effects of mass violence. This unrivalled resource emphasizes stress management and crisis intervention skills as important building blocks for working with more complex issues of trauma and disaster. It underscores the idea that trauma must be approached from multiple perspectives and in multiple dimensions encompassing individual, community, societal, and systemic implications along with multicultural and diversity frames of reference. The text integrates the latest findings from neuropsychology and psychopharmacology with an emphasis on Polyvagal Theory. Additionally, the text highlights the importance of clinical supervision in trauma care and examines ethical dimensions and the need for self-care among trauma counselors. Purchase includes digital access for use on most mobile devices or computers. New to the Second Edition: Reconceptualizes the text with the concept of a "Trauma Scaffold" as a foundation upon which to understand and develop treatment for increasingly complex trauma events Addresses the COVID-19 pandemic and its profound effect on the mental health of vast numbers of people Includes two new chapters on the confluence of crises related to anthropogenic climate change and the effects of mass violence Includes PowerPoint slides to accompany an updated Instructor's Manual Key Features: Delivers both introductory and advanced clinical information addressing complex trauma Addresses trauma from a bioecological framework with emphasis on trauma-informed practices, multicultural pluralism, diversity, and social justice Considers neurobiological responses to trauma with new research and the contributions of Polyvagal Theory Examines individual, familial, community, society, and systemic understandings of stress, crisis, trauma, and disaster Includes a wealth of resources for further study, text boxes, and case studies to reinforce learning

Winner of the Cundill History Prize Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction Shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 “Masterful and crystalline. It feels as if Joan Didion turned her powers of observation on China.” —Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author of Age of Ambition An indelible exploration of the invisible scar that runs through the heart of Chinese society and the souls of its citizens. “It is impossible to understand China today without understanding the Cultural Revolution,” Tania Branigan writes. During this decade of Maoist fanaticism between 1966 and 1976, children turned on parents, students condemned teachers, and as many as two million people died for their supposed political sins, while tens of millions were hounded, ostracized, and imprisoned. Yet in China this brutal and turbulent period exists, for the most part, as an absence; official suppression and personal trauma have conspired in national amnesia. Red Memory uncovers forty years of silence through the stories of individuals who lived through the madness. Deftly exploring how this era defined a generation and continues to impact China today, Branigan asks: What happens to a society when you can no longer trust those closest to you? What happens to the present when the past is buried, exploited, or redrawn? And how do you live with yourself when the worst is over?

This book examines the effects of sociocultural trauma throughout the 20th century on interpersonal and family relationships in five Eastern European countries, drawing on the perspectives of mental health practitioners. Chapters employ a systemic perspective to explore the unique social, political, and cultural contexts that influence relationships in each country with a particular focus on implications for psychological and relational well-being. The volume demonstrates the importance of examining the cultural and sociocontextual nuances and complexity that may influence the impact of historical events on relationships, elucidating similarities and differences among countries in how the collective trauma has influenced them. It assists family therapists and other mental health practitioners in recognizing cultural and social factors that may influence their work with families, individuals, or couples living in these countries or who have immigrated from them. Key areas of coverage include: Descriptions of each country’s experience of sociocultural trauma and the current social-cultural-economic-political contexts. Impact of trauma on interpersonal relationships across various social locations and national and ethnic identities within the existing borders. Current challenges, recommendations for clinical practice, and future directions for research and practice. Sociocultural Trauma and Well-Being in Eastern European Family Therapy is an essential resource for clinicians, therapists, and practitioners as well as researchers, professors, and graduate students in family studies, clinical psychology, and public health as well as all interrelated disciplines.

Examining the role of memory in the transition from totalitarian to democratic systems, this book makes an important contribution to memory studies. It explores memory as a medium of and impediment to change, looking at memory's biological, cultural, narrative and socio-psychological dimensions.

This book examines the nature of treatments available for traumatized people, describing common elements, as well as those which are specific to each treatment. It presents a diversity of theories and tools for understanding how history and personalities affect the individual. Complete with case studies, it is ideal for practitioners at all levels.

This collection of consistently interesting articles contributes to the very boom in studies of memory towards which the editors ambiguously claim some skepticism. JRAI [This volume] is an important anthropological contribution to this expanding field [of memories of past violence]...The ethnographic diversity of the chapters allows for cross-cultural comparison and, as the editors themselves underscore, for different methodological and analytical approaches. Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale This collection of essays marks out fertile ground for anthropological investigations of memories of violence and trauma...the fine-grained analyses [ the wide ranging case studies contain] give the lie to any simplistic, ethnocentric and yet unversalising, explanations...it throws a stunning critical spotlight upon many contemporary 'Western' therapeutic approaches that insist upon the 'talking cure'...It makes a valuable contribution to the anthropology of time, memory and violence and is suitable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Anthroplogical Notebooks This is a rich and stimulating collection...Taken together [these chapters] provide an excellent antidote to simplistic medical or psychological approaches to the long-term effects of violence on victims and their families. Paul Antze, York University, Toronto [A] timely and important collection that brings together a number of current literatures in anthropology and memory studies...The volume enriches and complicates the study of memory, while making at the same time a strong case for the distinctiveness of anthropology's potential to contribute to such an enterprise. Stuart McLean, University of Minnesota Psychologists have done a great deal of research on the effects of trauma on the individual, revealing the paradox that violent experiences are often secreted away beyond easy accessibility, becoming impossible to verbalize explicitly. However, comparatively little research has been done on the transgenerational effects of trauma and the means by which experiences are transmitted from person to person across time to become intrinsic parts of the social fabric. With eight contributions covering Africa, Central and South America, China, Europe, and the Middle East, this volume sheds new light on the role of memory in constructing popular histories - or historiographies - of violence in the absence of, or in contradistinction to, authoritative written histories. It brings new ethnographic data to light and presents a truly cross-cultural range of case studies that will greatly enhance the discussion of memory and violence across disciplines. Nicolas Argenti is a senior lecturer in social anthropology at Brunel University. He has conducted research in North West Cameroon and Southern Sri Lanka on youth, political violence, and embodied memory. His monograph, The Intestines of the State: Youth, Violence and Belated Histories in the Cameroon Grassfields, was published in 2007. Katharina Schramm is a senior lecturer in social anthropology at the Martin-Luther-University of Halle-Wittenberg. She has previously worked on the commemoration of the slave trade and cultural politics in Ghana. Her published works include African Homecoming: Panafricanism and the Politics of Heritage (2010) and Identity Politics and the New Genetics: Re/creating Categories of Difference and Belonging (201