January 27, 2015—Holocaust Memorial
Day—marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Berkenau, the
largest of the Nazi death camps. Fittingly, the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies
has invited Hadas Wiseman, Ph.D., to give a free colloquium on Wednesday,
January 28, 2015, on “Intergenerational Echoes of the Holocaust in Second and
Third Generations.”
Dr. Wiseman, a professor in the
Department of Counseling and Human Development at the University of Haifa,
Israel, is the co-author with Derner
Institute Dean Jacques P. Barber, Ph.D., of Echoes of the Trauma: Relationship Themes and Emotions in
Children of Holocaust Survivors (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
In her lecture, Dr. Wiseman will
discuss her research on second-generation Holocaust survivors, specifically
their intergenerational communication style of “knowing” and “not knowing.” She
explained: “The survivor’s story is both ‘known’ in that it has an
unspoken presence in the home and ‘not known’ to the sons and daughters, who in
turn fear that questioning their parents may reopen old wounds.”
She will also share her findings
about the experiences of the third generation, which she refers to as “echoes
of the echoes.”
For their book, Dr. Wiseman and Dr.
Barber applied Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) to analyze the
narratives shared by second-generation Holocaust about growing up in survivor
homes. Dr. Wiseman will describe their use of CCRT and its implications for
understanding and treating the survivors of other traumas.
The talk is highly relevant for
practicing and aspiring clinicians, particularly those interested in the
long-term effects of massive trauma and how these are passed from one
generation to the next.
