Abstract
Multigenerational storytelling and mentalisation are built on each other and these in turn are part of a multigenerational self. In this chapter, I also consider the ways in which therapy already works with generational issues as well as looking at some of the ways in which it inhibits it. I look at how adopting a multigenerational perspective may alter the culture of therapy, how it is practised and how training occurs, especially in the area of assessments and in ways of thinking about the therapeutic relationship and supervision. I discuss cyclical patterns in memory and how these may act as a map or guide in therapeutic work. Finally, I explore the idea of developing a multigenerational sensibility to find a balance between working with multigenerational trauma and internal/developmental issues. I develop the connection between trance, working beyond words and more familiar psychodynamic concepts such as reverie and free association that can lead to holding and storytelling which are important aspects of multigenerational work.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abraham, N. and Torok, M. (1994) The Shell and the Kernel. Translated from the French by Nicolas T. Rand. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Agazarian, Y.M. and Carter, F.B. (1993) Discussions on the large group. Group [online]. 17, pp. 210–234 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Alford, C.F. (2019) Intergenerational transmission of trauma: Holocaust survivors, their children and their children’s children. Journal of Psychosocial Studies. 12 (1–2), pp. 145–155.
Alleyne, A. (2005) The internal oppressor—The veiled companion of external racial oppression. UKCP Journal [online] [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Alleyne, A. (2019) Post slavery syndrome and intergenerational trauma [Lecture]. No date. Available from: https://www.confer.uk.com/module/module-slavery.html [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Armstrong, D. (2005) Organization in the Mind: Psychoanalysis, Group Relations and Organizational Consultancy. London: Karnac.
Atkinson, J. (2002) Trauma Trails, Recreating Song Lines: The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Bateman, A. and Fonagy, P. (2010) Mentalization based treatment for borderline personality disorder. World Psychiatry [online]. 9 (1), pp. 11–15 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Benjamin, J (2018) Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third. Oxon: Routledge.
Beutler, L.E., Edwards, C. and Someah, K. (2018) Adapting psychotherapy to patient reactance level: A meta‐analytic review. Journal of Clinical Psychology [online]. 74 (11), pp. 1952–1963 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Bion, W.R. (1967) Notes on memory and desire. Psychoanalytic Forum. 2 (3), pp. 272–280.
Blackman, L. (2012) Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Meditation. London: Sage.
Bowlby, J. (2005) The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds. London and New York: Routledge.
Bretherton, I. and Munholland, K.A. (2008) Internal working models in attachment relationships: Elaborating a central construct in attachment theory. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment: Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications. New York: The Guilford Press, pp. 102–127.
Cho, G.M. (2008) Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Crociani-Windland, L. (2018) The researcher’s subjectivity as a research instrument—From intuition to surrender. In Cummins, A.-L. and Williams, N. (2018) Further Researching Beneath the Surface (Volume 2): Psycho-Social Research Methods in Practice. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 27–48.
Dallos, R. (2006) Attachment Narrative Therapy Integrating Narrative, Systemic and Attachment Therapies. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Davoine, F. and Gaudillière, J.-M. (2004) History Beyond Trauma. New York: Other Press.
DeGruy, J (2005) Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Milwaukie, Oregon: Uptone Press.
Eliot, G. (1871–1872) Middlemarch. Reprint. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Freud, S. (1912) Wild Analysis. New Penguin Freud series, Ed. by Adam Phillips. Translated by Adam Blance. London: Penguin Books, 2002.
Harlow, H.F. (1958) The nature of love. American Psychologist [online]. 13 (12), pp. 673–685 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Haupt, P. and Malcolm, C. (2001) Between hell and hope: An organizational case study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa. Organisational and Social Dynamics, 1 (1), pp. 113–129.
Hepper, E.G., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Robertson, S. and Routledge, C.D. (2020) Time capsule: Nostalgia shields psychological wellbeing from limited time horizons. To be published in Emotion [preprint]. Available from: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-19442-001 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Kreeger, L. (1975) The Large Group: Dynamics and Therapy. Reprint. Great Britain: Karnac, 1994.
Malan, D. (1979) Individual Psychotherapy and the Science of Psychodynamics. London: Butterworths.
Oboe, A. (2007) The TRC women’s hearings as performance and protest in the new South Africa. Research in African Literatures [online]. 38 (3), pp. 60–76 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
O’Loughlin, M. and McLeod, B. (2015) ‘Thinking beyond our means’: Engendering a depth understanding of trauma. In: O’Loughlin, M. and Charles, M. (Eds.) Fragments of Trauma and the Social Production of Suffering: Trauma, History and Memory. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 291–308.
Shevlin, M. and McGuigan, K. (2003) The Long‐term psychological impact of Bloody Sunday on families of the victims as measured by the revised impact of event scale. British Journal of Clinical Psychology [online]. 42 (4), pp. 427–432 [Accessed 22 September 2019].
Stuthridge, J. (2017) Falling apart and getting it together: The dialectics of disintegration and integration in script change and self-development. Transactional Analysis Journal [online]. 47 (1), pp. 19–31 [Accessed 20 September 2020].
Wilson, N., Ed. (2010) Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece. New York: Routledge.
Winnicott, D. (1971) Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Williams, N. (2021). Therapeutic Implications of Working with Multigenerational Memory. In: Mapping Social Memory. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66157-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66157-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-66156-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-66157-1
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)