BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

Echoes of Captivity:

A Relational Perspective on Intergenerational Communication Patterns;

The Case of Adult Offspring of Israeli Ex-Prisoners of War

KINERET SHAPIRA

Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s

Degree in the Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University

Ramat Gan, Israel 2016

 BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

Echoes of Captivity:

A Relational Perspective on Intergenerational Communication Patterns;

The Case of Adult Offspring of Israeli Ex-Prisoners of War

KINERET SHAPIRA

Submitted in Partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s

Degree in the Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University

Ramat Gan, Israel 2016

This work was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Rivka Tuval-

Mashiach of the Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University.

Acknowledgments

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Prof. Rivka Tuval-Mashiach of the Clinical

Psychology Program at the Bar-Ilan University, for her ongoing theoretical and clinical

guidance, alongside the mutual thinking process she continuously nurtured.

Secondly, I would like to thank Dr. Offer Maurer, for his endless support and commitment,

and his never-ending, thought-provoking, inputs.

I would also like to thank Dr. Itamar Barnea of the Natal Center (i.e., Israeli trauma center for

victims of terror and war; http://www.natal.org.il); who allowed for this research to give rise,

and was there to assist along the way.

Additionally, I would like to thank Prof. Zehava Solomon, Carmit Broenfeld-Aflalo and Roy

Aloni of the Adler Center for the Study of Child Welfare and Protection of the Tel Aviv

University, for their generosity and willingness to assist.

I would like to give my deep and sincere thanks to my colleagues at the Clinical Psychology

Program, namely Nehami Hacohen, Gal Lazarus, Gal Groen-Frank and Dr. Cobi Stein, who

were always there to support, criticize and share knowledge and ideas along the way.

I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Boaz Shalgi of the Clinical Psychology Program at Bar-Ilan

University as the second reader of this thesis, and I am gratefully indebted to his valuable

comments and creative thinking process.

I would like to express my deep gratitude for all those who were willing to be interviewed for

this study, which entailed an unavoidable “opening of wounds” and confrontation with pain.

Finally, I would like to thank my dearest family and friends, who gave me the emotional-

spiritual-experiential-theoretical support I needed along the path, for allowing me to “stay

alive” in the deepest of meanings.

Kineret Shapira, May 2016

Table of Contents

Abstract.........................................................................................................................I-III
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...1-9
Intergenerational Transmission of Complex Trauma ……………………………………..…1
The Role of Dissociation in Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma…………..…3
Communicative Pathways as Indirect Means of Intergenerational Transmission
of Trauma..………………………………………………………………………………………..……………..7
The Current Study ……………………………………………………………………………………..…….….10-18
Method; Participants, Study Design …………… ……………………………………………..….11
Methodological Framework and Data Analysis………………………………………………..12
Validity…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….14
Ethical Considerations……………………………………………………………………………………..16
Results………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….18-36
I. The Excessive Compenastion………………………………………………………………………..18
II.The Excessive Toxicity………………………………………………………………………………..…25
III. The Excessive Silence……………………………………………………………………….………..29
Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….37-49
Summary………………………………………………………………………………………………………...37
Contextualizing the Research Findings…………………………………………………………….41
Psychoanalytic Conceptualization……………………………………………………………….…..44
Research Limitations……………………………………………………………………………………….47
Future Directions………………………………………………………………………………….…………48
References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..50-57
‫תקציר‬............................................................................................................................‫ב‬-‫א‬
Abstract

Background and objectives: Complex trauma causes disruptions in the traumatic parent’s inner

experience and his capacity to contain the child, influencing the child’s internal world (Siegel,

2012; Solomon et. al., 2008, Lyons-Ruth, 2003; Auerhahn & Laub, 1998; Herman, 1992).

As a unique form of complex traumatic experience, war-imprisonment has been found to cause

substantial post-traumatic disruptions in emotional experience and psychic integration,

damaging the capacity for self-regulation and stable, reciprocal relationships with others

(Solomon et. al., 2008; Genefke et. al., 2000; Hunter-King, 2000; Main and Hesse, 1999;

Herman, 1992; Janoff-Bulman, 1992). Compared to other parents in the wake of different

traumas, the harsh, intensive, and continuous man-made trauma, such as war captivity, alters

individuals’ basic trust in others in a way that may undermine their ability to provide and

maintain secure attachments to their children (Solomon, Dekel, & Mikulincer, 2008).

Working from a relational psychoanalytic conceptual framework, our study focused on the

intergenerational transmission of trauma as it is shaped by dissociative processes. Dissociation

is seen as the primary psychic defense process that manifests through communication patterns

between trauma survivors and their children (Stolorow, 2007; Bromberg, 2004, 1998; Wiseman

& Barber, 2008, 2006). Dissociation is conceptualized as a simultaneously intrapsychic and

intersubjective process and is defined as a disruption of internal dialogue between self-states

(Stern, 2004; Bromberg, 1998; Davies, 1996). In an attempt to dislocate from painful and

unbearable traumatic memories and affects, and to maintain a sense of self-continuity, the

dissociative apparatus blocks away dialogue and conflict within self-states, between the affects,

memories, and symbolic representations of the trauma (Bromberg 2004, 1998, 1994).

I
In the context of parenting, dissociative processes and their enactments cause disruptions in

the ability to be attuned, containing and emotionally accessible to the child’s needs (Ogden,

2004, 2003; Davies, 1997, 1996). Much of the intergenerational influences of trauma

transmission occurs through subtle covert communication patterns, making it impossible for

the child to reflectively “digest” the parent’s traumatic past and maintain sense of coherence

and integration of him and of the parent-child relationship (Lyons-Ruth, 2003, 2002; Klein-

Parker 1988; Lichtman, 1984). The current study sets forth to expand the understanding of the

covert communicative processes involved in dissociative intergenerational traumatic

transmission, as it is brought up in the context of adult offspring of Ex-POWs (i.e., ex-prisoners

of war) in Israel.

Method: Through a qualitative analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were held

with 14 adult-children of Israeli Ex-POWS, the study explored patterns of intergenerational

communication, as these were manifested through unconscious dissociative processes of the

said and unsaid contents relating to the trauma, and through relational enactments, both in the

personal stories of the interviewees and their relationship with their father (i.e. as present in

the interview as “the text”), and as brought up during the interview as an intersubjective

moment of interaction which encompasses ongoing unconscious communication and

enactments (i.e., as “the intersubjective context”).

Results: The current study examined the intergenerational transmission of trauma as

manifested through patterns of communication between Israeli Ex-POWS and their adult

children. Through a holistic-content qualitative analysis of stories given by 14 adult children of

trauma survivors, three types of communicative pathways were identified: the excessive

II
compensation communication pattern, in which the trauma is structured as an heroic story

which was told only in public spheres, emphasizing the admiration, normality and strength of

the father’s image while negating and obscuring vulnerability and traumatic aspects of both the

father and themselves; the excessive toxicity communication pattern, which is characterized

by an inherent “too-muchness” of dreading and undigested traumatic stories told by the father

to the child, rendering the internal and intersubjective psyche deeply intoxicated and

bewildering; and the excessive silence communication pattern, which entails a “double silence”

dynamic of the unspoken dissociated experience, as the traumatic material is never

metabolized, verbalized and shared by the father in an integrated way.

Conclusion: Current results validate and expand previous related findings regarding

intergenerational patterns of communication, as found in Ex-POWs families of related

populations, such as those of Holocaust survivors. In addition, our research afforded an

important expansion to the field of intergenerational transmission of trauma among Israeli Ex-

POWS, as it lends a special focus to the issue of communication patterns, which to our

knowledge has not been addressed previously. Our results were discussed through a social and

cultural contextualizing and a psychoanalytic conceptualization, in order to allow an in-depth

understanding of the derived material.

KEYWORDS: complex trauma, intergenerational transmission, dissociation, communication

patterns

III
Introduction:

“To seek reality is both to set out to explore the injury inflicted by it, to turn back on,

and to try to penetrate, the state of being stricken, wounded by reality - and to

attempt, at the same time to reemerge from the paralysis of this state, to engage

reality, as an advent, a movement, and as a vital critical necessity of moving on.”

Felman & Laub (1992), Testimony, p. 30

Intergenerational Transmission of Complex Trauma

Complex trauma is defined by prolonged periods of aversive stress, usually involving

entrapment (psychological or physical), repeated violations of boundaries, betrayal, rejection

and confusion marked by a lack of control and helplessness (van der Kolk, 2001; Herman, 1992).

In the case of war captivity, on-going physical and psychological torture and lengthy

interrogations usually take place, in order to create compliance and cooperation (Zerach and

Aloni, 2014; Zepinic, 2010). Complex war trauma has been found to cause substantial post-

traumatic disruptions in emotional experience and psychic integration, damaging the capacity

for self-regulation and stable, reciprocal relationships with others (Solomon et. al., 2008;

Genefke et. al., 2000; Hunter-King, 2000; Main and Hesse, 1999; Herman, 1992; Janoff-Bulman,

1992).

Studies on the repercussions of complex trauma (i.e., C-PTSD) have shown that the

impact of traumatic events are not limited to the individual who was directly exposed to the

1
stressful event, as these events have significant effects on meaningful others (Campbell and

Renshaw, 2012; Dekel and Goldblatt, 2008; Rosenheck & Fontana, 1998; van der Kolk, 1987 ).

Complex trauma causes disruptions in the traumatic parent’s inner experience and his capacity

to contain the child, influencing the child’s internal world (Siegel, 2012; Lyons-Ruth, 2003;

Fonagy, 2002; Auerhahn & Laub, 1998). Compared to other parents in the wake of different

traumas, the harsh, intensive, and continuous man-made trauma, such as war captivity, may

alter individuals’ basic trust in others in a way that undermines their ability to provide and

maintain secure attachments to their children (Solomon, Dekel, & Mikulincer, 2008). Research

has shown that wives and children of veterans with C-PTSD have increased psychiatric

symptoms, impaired social relations, and more negative emotions such as loneliness (Stein and

Tuval-Mashiach, 2015; Renshaw et. al., 2010; 2012; Dekel et. al., 2005; Mikulincer et. al., 1995;

Solomon et al., 1992).

Most of the research concerning intergenerational transmission of complex trauma

draws on studies of Holocaust survivors and their families. Findings from this field of inquiry

suggest that posttraumatic parents are often unable to contain their child’s painful affects,

being too frightened of these emotional intensities (Daud et. al., 2005; Ruscio et. al., 2002).

Studies have shown that a parental attachment figure characterized by unresolved trauma

responds in a frightened or frightening manner to the child, demonstrating unpredictable,

dissociative and unattuned relational patterns (Lieberman, 2014; Mazor & Tal, 1996). As a

result, children of survivors often function as a psychic container for their parents’ distressful

affects (Wiseman and Barber, 2006, 2002; Bar-On, 1998, 1995). Studies focusing on

intergenerational effects of the Holocaust indicate that as a consequence of their parents’

2
experience, “Second-Generation” children differentiate less completely from their parents, see

themselves as protectors of their parents rather than vice versa, and tend to inhibit their own

impulse to establish independence and autonomy (Auerhahn and Laub, 1998; Felsen, 1998;

Herzog, 1982).

The Role of Dissociation in Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma:

A salient aspect of complex trauma and its post-traumatic effects, highlighted mainly by

relational psychoanalytic literature, is the massive use of dissociative processes in order to

maintain psychological survival (Bromberg & Chefetz, 2004; Boulanger, 2002; Bromberg, 1994).

Attempting to dislocate from painful and unbearable traumatic memories and affects, and to

maintain a sense of self-continuity, the dissociative apparatus blocks away dialogue and conflict

within self-states, between the affects, memories, and symbolic representations of the trauma

(Bromberg 2004, 1998, 1994). Stern (2004) addressed the dissociated post-traumatic elements

as “unformulated experience” and outlined their preverbal, linguistically inaccessible nature.

Stern suggested these post-traumatic materials are generally experienced as amorphous affects

– impulses, feelings, urges, fears, shadowy elements that have not been processed and

digested. Boulanger (2002) touches upon this malignant experiential reality of the adult onset

complex-trauma survivor:

“In its defensive retreat into dissociation, the psyche has broken faith with the

consistency and resilience of its core. It is as if the core self's support systems,

agency, continuity, cohesiveness, and affect—all of which were temporarily

disconnected by dissociation during the actual trauma—cannot be reconnected

3
 seamlessly. The self has lost the familiar ground on which it stood. It is an awareness

that is never far from consciousness, that can come into sharp relief in response to

external or internal cues, but often it is simply a hum in the background of

experience, a knowledge of otherness, of the failure of the self and the self's ties, of

the certainty of death.” (p. 54)

These notions emphasize that the post-traumatic experience contains, at its core, an

“unthought known” (Bollas, 1987) experience which capsulate the intrinsic dread of the

traumatic encounter and the shattering of basic notions about the self, the other and the

world. Through the dissociative process, threatening parts of the self (trauma-related self-

states) are firmly kept split-off and undigested, becoming an unacceptable not-me experience

of the psych (Davies, 1997, 1996,; Bromberg 2004, 1998, 1994). These dissociated self-parts

obtain a “haunting” quality, as their inherent force is to be enacted; relived, digested and

integrated through meaningful relationship with others (Davies, 1996). Bromberg (2003) used

the metaphor of self as haunted by the dissociated state. As an aspect of self that resides in a

dark and hidden space, the inexpressible dissociated content finds tongue by forcing itself out

into conscious experience through gesture and interpersonally located human action –

enactment (Bromberg, 2003; Stern, 2003).

In the context of parenting, dissociative processes and their enactments cause

disruptions in the ability to be attuned, containing and emotionally accessible to the child’s

needs (Ogden, 2004, 2003; Davies, 1997, 1996). When the traumatized parent remains resilient

and ‘alive’, state-shifting or mild fragmentation may be tolerable for the child. On the contrary,

in cases of post-traumatic dissociation, in order to bond and attach in ever-more dysregulated

4
circumstances, the child must attune to procedural communications about the trauma story.

The child must do this in order to have an attachment relationship, thereby becoming attached

to a parent’s presence and absence. The parent’s internal fragmentation renders him unable to

hold empathically and formulate verbally the child’s emotions, and so he struggles to assist his

child in the digestion and integration of feeling. This places the child in a painful position of

having to metabolize his or her own painful affective states. This process then takes place

through the uncontained child’s mechanisms of dissociative defense. The absence of a

relational home (Stolorow, 2007) for the infant’s feelings creates an experience of

intersubjective dislocation, and it is through this that the experiences of the developing self

remain unformulated and unvoiced in the intersubjective space.

In addition, the child needs to feel that he or she has access to and can live inside the

mind of the parent. If part of the parent’s mind is deadened, hidden, or dissociated, the search

for the parent becomes dire (Gerson, 2009; Stolorow, 2007; Grand, 2000). In the face of a

dyadic intimate emotional experience with the child, the dissociative post-traumatic parent is

often flooded with a fear of destabilization of his own sense of self, signaled by dissociation and

an encounter with a “not-me” element of the self (Bromberg and Chefetz, 2004). In relation to

this developmentally oriented construction of dissociative process, dissociation is described as

the presence of “not-me” components within the self that exert an ongoing influence on lived

experience. “Not-me” self-states are dissociated self-states that have become disavowed and

unacceptable by the psyche, which are in turn relationally communicated through unconscious

processes such as projection-identification and enactments (Stern, 2004; Bromberg, 1998;

Davies, 1996).

5
 In the absence of relational holding and attunement the child may develop a disrupted

relationship with his or her internal states. Indeed, repeated parental misattuenements,

resulting from complex post-traumatic dissociation, become in turn a “not-me” experience of

the child, experiencing some aspects of himself as unwanted and disavowed, or as Bromberg

puts it: “If a child is confirmed as existing to a parent only in certain states, then the natural

continuity of “me” from one state to another is rendered impossible, or at least is seriously

disrupted” (Bromberg & Chefetz, 2004, p. 419). Through these intergenerational dyadic

processes, dissociation becomes a part of an individual’s ongoing way of being and relating.

Much of the family influence of trauma transmission may be explained as occurring

through these subtle covert communication patterns, making it impossible for the child to

reflectively “digest” the parent’s traumatic past and maintain sense of coherence and

integration of him and of the parent-child relationship (Lyons-Ruth, 2003, 2002; Klein-Parker

1988; Lichtman, 1984). Laub (1998) proposed that although children of traumatized parents

often know about their parents’ trauma, in fact, they experience a hole, an absence within their

relationship with traumatic attachment figures. Laub (1998) coined it an “empty circle”,

affectingly capturing the oddness of traumatic transmissions from parent to child and the

ongoing tension between knowledge and of emptiness, simultaneously mixed with over-

fullness or an excess of certain affects: often fear, dread, and even terror. Children may identify

with the projected parts of their parent’s emotions, and perceive his/her experiences and

feelings as their own. These unconscious processes can make it difficult for the child to form a

separate self, and may result in the development of symptoms that replicate the disturbances

6
of the father such as social isolation, guilt and detachment (Ancharoff, Munroe, & Fisher, 1998;

Op den Velde, 1998).

Communicative Pathways as Indirect means of Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma:

Patterns of parental communication about trauma have been found to have a subliminal

mediating influence on the child (Dekel and Goldblatt, 2008; Sorscher and Cohen 1997).

Drawing mainly on psychodynamic theories, researchers claim that trauma transmission is

mediated by the lack of open communication about the past and the emotional withdrawal and

dissociative mechanisms which characterize the survivor parent (Shmotkin et. al., 2011; Katz,

2003; Kellermann, 2001a; Danieli, 1998 ;). Within this theoretical understanding, parental

trauma experiences are thought to become family ghosts, enabling intergenerational

transmission of relational patterns, such as a sense of alienation, difficulties in emotional

attunement and mentalization, over-protectiveness, enmeshment and mistrust in others

(Salberg, 2015; van der Hart et. al., 2006; Faimberg, 2005; Lyons-Ruth, 2003; Fonagy, 2002; Bar-

On et. al, 1998).

Studies have found negative effects of “guilt inducing communication” and “indirect

communication” (Bradfield, 2013; Braga et al., 2012; Hollander-Goldfein, Isserman, &

Goldenberg, 2011; Lichtman, 1984). In many cases, communication might become indirect,

confusing and ambivalent, and children are faced with continuous clues and obscuring

messages about their parent’s traumatic past and current emotional state (Dalgaard and

Mongomery, 2015; Braga et. al., 2012;Dekel and Goldblatt, 2008). Ancharoff et. al. (1998)

identified four possible mechanisms of intergenerational trauma; silence, over-disclosure,

7
identification and reenactment. Indeed, one of the most known patterns of these

intergenerational dynamics of post-trauma is the "conspiracy of silence" in which both parent

and child participate in silencing the trauma, in an effort to protect each other from the

emotional destabilization (Danieli, 1998, 1982; 2007; Bar-On, 1989; Lichtman, 1984). Wiseman,

Metzl, and Barber (2006) reported that second-generation offspring often avoided open

expression of negative emotions, such as anger and guilt, in order not to inflict further pain on

their survivor parents. Quantitative studies specifically addressing communication of Holocaust

experiences in families of Holocaust survivors showed that Holocaust survivors’ ability and

willingness to openly talk about their traumatic experiences was related to lower levels of

psychological distress among their second-generation children (Wiseman et al., 2002).

Wiseman et al. (2006) subsequently reported that survivors’ children tended to suppress their

expression of negative emotion around their parents. Their qualitative analysis of relational

narratives revealed themes of lack of open communication, atmosphere of silence in the family,

and vague knowledge of the survivor-parent’s Holocaust experience that were strongly

associated with feelings of loneliness.

In a comprehensive review of the literature regarding intergenerational transmission of

Holocaust trauma, Kellerman (2001) distinguished the process of how the effects of trauma

were transmitted across generations and the content of what was transmitted as manifested by

psychological problems and symptoms of distress. The content of transmission relates to what

was in fact transmitted (i.e., the symptomology of the parents and its’ secondary post-

traumatic effects on the offspring), while the process of transmission is focused on ways in

which the trauma was carried over from one generation to the next (Kellerman, 2001; Levine

8
1982). Whereas most studies explored the content of transmission, that is, the psychological

effects on second-generation and third-generation, studies that examined the process of

traumatic transmission are scarce. One study that investigated both the content and the

process of intergenerational traumatic transmission within Holocaust survivors’ families (Lotem

& Terece, 2013) found that in terms of process, family communication was one of the key

factors in the manner in which trauma was transmitted across generations. Specifically, lack of

open exchange of both factual and emotional information, was related to emotional reactivity

and difficulties in anxiety regulation. The researchers concluded that these factors appear to be

some of the vehicles through which trauma can be transmitted from one generation to

another.

9
The Present Study

As evident by the literature review brought thus far, most studies that examined the

process of traumatic transmission in terms of communicative patterns have been focused on

Holocaust-related population. The current study sets forth to expand the understanding of the

covert communicative processes involved in intergenerational traumatic transmission, as it is

brought up in the context of adult offspring of Ex-POWs in Israel. In doing so, the current study

hopes to afford a contemporary contextualized view, considering the difference in research

population (second-generation to Holocaust survivors vs. second-generation to Ex-POWs) and

in historical-cultural and familial communication norms and ethos. Additionally, the study aims

to offer a bridging of the gap between relational psychoanalytic conceptualization of

dissociation processes and their intergenerational manifestations, and between research-based

contemporary findings concerning intergenerational transmission of C-PTSD. In doing so, the

study aims to deepen the understanding on the process by which traumatic material is shared

and transmitted. The study explores relational patterns of communication, as these are

manifested through unconscious dissociative processes of the said and unsaid contents and

through relational enactments, both in the personal stories of the interviewees and their

relationship with their father (i.e. as present in the interview as “the text”), and as brought up

during the interview as an intersubjective moment of interaction which encompasses ongoing

unconscious communication and enactments (i.e., as “the intersubjective context”).

10
Method

Participants:

14 nonclinical participants were recruited voluntarily from three different sources: Natal

(Israeli trauma center for victims of terror and war; http://www.natal.org.il); the Adler Center

for the Study of Child Welfare and Protection of the Tel Aviv University, and through an ad

which was circled by a professional network of. All participants were identified by their history

of being adult children of Israeli Ex-POWs. Excluding one participant, all interviewers were born

after the father had been released from captivity, within a period ranging from 2-10 years. The

participants’ ages ranged from 28 to 43 years. The slight majority of participants were men

(n=8, out of 14). Majority of the offspring fathers’ were imprisoned during the Yum Kippur War

[1973], excluding one participant whose father was a captive during the War of Attrition [1969-

1970].

Study Design:

All eligible individuals were contacted by phone, and received a general explanation

concerning the aims of the study by the researchers. Prior to interviews, all participants were

assured that their anonymity would be maintained and were provided written informed

consent by means of a standardized form approved by the University Research Ethics

Committee.

Half of the interviews were co-conducted by Dr. Itamar Barnea and Prof. Rivka Tuval-

Mashiach, both senior clinical psychologists, specializing in trauma. The remaining interviews

were conducted by the first writer of the current article, a clinical psychology trainee who was

11
supervised by Prof. Tuval-Mashiach. Researchers sought to limit the differences between the

two interpersonal interview-settings while reflecting their possible implications.

Participants were invited to speak freely about their initial encounter and long-life

familiarity with the traumatic experiences of their father, and the perceived ways in which

these experiences affected their upbringing and their relationship with their father. The in-

depth approach was assured by semi-structured open-ended interviews, which prioritized

interviewees’ feelings and the meanings they assigned to their memories and experiences

through open questions (i.e., what atmosphere were you born into, from your own

remembered experience? How did you get to know what happened to your father and how was

it like for you? What did you feel? etc.). The majority of interviews were held in a clinic (a single

exception was an interview held in the home of an interviewee who was unable to arrive to the

clinic), and lasted from one to three hours. All interviews were digitally recorded and

transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were compared to the audiotaped interviews to check for

accuracy. Transcription aimed to capture not only the wording, but also the pauses, half words,

silences, gestures, difference in tone, rhythm, and facial expressions such as smiles, laughter,

concern, seriousness, tears, and so forth. The sample was closed when theme saturation was

achieved.

Methodological Framework and Data Analysis:

The phenomenological-constructivist approach, underlying the method used in the

current research, seeks to understand and interpret the subjective meanings of peoples’

experiences rather than to test hypothesis and generalize findings (Smith & Osborn, 2008).

12
Individuals use storytelling and narrative formation to give meaning to their experience,

negotiate the meaning of events, make choices in the social sphere, and build up an identity. It

is through these stories that they move around successfully in a complex world, or fail in this

task, achieve their objectives or fail to do so, consolidate their ties of belongingness, and

manage their subjective suffering and relational problems (Larkin et. al., 2006; McAdams,

1993).

Additionally, current analysis relays on the relational interviewing approach for

qualitative research, which focuses on the complex interaction between interviewer and

interviewee, emphasizing the co-construction and mutual influences that arise during the

interview interaction (Josselson, 2013; Gergen and Davis, 1997). Such an approach highlights

the intersubjective context and allows encompassing both the text and the context that are

constructed by the narrative (Josselson, 2013; Gubrium et al., 2012; Zilber et. al., 2008).

The current analysis also draws on the interpretative phenomenology approach, which

does not take accounts of experience “at face value” but aims to move beyond the data by

stepping outside of the account and reflect on its status as an account and its wider (social,

cultural, psychological) meanings (Willig, 2012; Zilber et. al., 2008; Larkin et.al., 2006).Thus, by

relating to the contents of the interviews as “examination objects” rather than as “mirror

pictures” of reality (Thorne, 2000), the study sought to examine hidden strata within the text

and the context through a “hermeneutics of suspicion” (Frosh & Saville-Young, 2008; Josselson,

2004;Hollway & Jefferson, 2000).

Analysis in the current research adopts the interpretive-narrative approach of mapping

across two axes, one relating to content/form, the other to the holistic/categorical aspect

13
(Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998). Each interview was read for its content in a holistic

manner until patterns began to emerge. Global impressions were noted by the space dedicated

to a certain issue and the repetitive nature that occurred both within and across narratives.

Following the extraction of relevant themes from the data the lead researcher wrote initial

reflections, first on possible interpretations of the narratives and secondly on the interviewer

subjective, embodied, and relational experience of the interviewee. Through this, an

interpretive analysis focused on two dimensions; the first was a textual content examination of

repeated patterns of communication, using Rogers et. al. (1999) interpretation of the dynamic

interplay between that which is said and unsaid in moments of negation, evasion, revision,

denial, hesitation and silence. The second analysis focused on the relational context of the

interview, emphasizing both the description of the relationship with the interviewee’s father

and the lived experience during the meeting, through an account of the intersubjective

emotional and non-verbal pathways of communication that were present between interviewer

and interviewee (Hyden, 2014; Josselson, 2013; Zilber et. al., 2008). Such holistic-content

readings of the material enabled the interviews to be categorized into three communication

patterns exemplified herein by (1) segments extracted from the multiple interviews and (2) in-

depth analysis of three representative interviews.

Validity

The interpretative-phenomenogical stance calls for a cautious hermeneutic position of

the research conclusions, bearing in mind that although causal, explanatory truth claims are

impossible to reach, meaning-imbued narrative truths are possible to generate when they are

14
able to offer theoretical coherence through rich descriptions and conceptualizations.

Attempting to anchor psychoanalytic ideas in the texture of the research relationship and as a

form of interpretation of the text, the narrative produced within the research relationship

received close scrutiny. These required commitment to reflexivity and relational narrative

analysis (Frosh & Saville-Young, 2008; Josselson, 2007).

However, there are limits to accessing relational dynamics and unconscious processes in

a research context. While the interviews elicited events in a participant past and the “here and

now” relationship, the research context does not afford evoking their unconscious correlates

over an extended period of time (as in therapeutic situations). Instead, analysis aimed to

identify patterns in participants’ linguistic responses and in their way of relating to the

interviewer. The use of interviewer’s journals in analyzing enabled ‘countertransference’

feelings and felt enactment to enrich the analytic interpretation by demanding coherence

between the analytic account and the experience of the interview that produced the text (Frosh

& Saville-Young, 2008; McNamee, 1994).

Validity was sought through rigorous, open-ended processes of triangulation, by

prolonged member checking, experts’ reading and reflexivity. Recorded material and

transcripts, interviewer’s journals, initial interpretations and final analysis was shared and

critically questioned and examined with informed colleagues, as part of the ongoing process of

analyzing and writing (Denzin, 2011; Cho & Trent, 2006). Encompassing interviews lead by two

separate research teams called for a reflective examination and limitation of the differences

between the two interpersonal interview-settings, in order to trace repeated thematic contents

and establish strong research validity. Additionally, triangulation was implemented through

15
analysis of the derived material from multiple research methods for systematic analysis and by

critically examining the derived results and conclusions through various theoretical viewpoints

(Zilber et. al, 2008; Dimmagio, 2006; Josselson, 2004; Rogers et. al., 1999; Lieblich et. al, 1998).

Ethical Considerations

In qualitative research, interviews are seen as a form of intervention which entails at its’

core a personal influence on the interviewees. The current in-depth psychological interviews

brought into consciousness issues that have not been dealt in the same introspective and

intersubjective manner previously, as it offered interviewees to reflect and share meaningful

emotional experiences. In itself, this posed an ongoing ethical issue which called for thoughtful

considerations, as the main target of such investigative setting is to help the researcher gain

understanding on a certain phenomenon, as oppose to assisting the interviewee (as in the

therapeutic context). Nonetheless, the research demanded to create a safe, honoring and

possibly enriching experience for the interviewees. Special awareness was put regarding the

termination of the interview, minding that interviewees were situated in a position of

vulnerability after sharing meaningful, highly personal materials. An additional demand was put

on confidentiality of the interviewees, as this was seen as precedent to investigative value

(Josselson, 2007; Patton, 2002).

The intersubjective context in which the interview occurs raised an additional ethical

issue, as the researcher is prone to be influenced by power relations, positioning one’s self or

being positioned by the interviewee as the singular holder of knowledge and truth. Great

emphasis was needed regarding the intersubjective context in which the interview is held,

16
giving precedency to interviewees associations, responses and limit-setting, while maintain an

open, reflective and critical view on the researcher’s power positioning and limitations due to

its’ own subjective interpretations and constructions (Josselson, 2007).

17
Results: When Silence is Excessive and Excessiveness is Silencing

Analysis enabled to identify three patterns of communication; the excessive

compensation, the excessive toxicity and the excessive silence. Excessiveness marks the

overwhelming and rigid characteristic of each of the patterns, as will be further illustrated. The

three communicative pathways were found to be placed on a continuum rather than on a

dichotomy, as some interviews revealed a mixed pattern of communication (“shifting”) during

different phases of the dyadic relationship.

In an effort to touch closely upon the unique nature of each of these communicative

pathways, as both evident through the text and by the intersubjective context of the interview,

each of the communication patterns will be represented first by (1) short extractions from

multiple interviews, followed by (2) an holistic analysis of a single interview, which was chosen

by the researcher due to its relevancy and demonstrative clearance, and due to ethical

considerations of confidentiality that marked the chosen representative interviews as more

accessible to depth analysis without exposing biographical material.

The Excessive Compensation:

The most common communicative pathway found in the interviews reflects a

communication pattern characterized by a negated form (“I am not”). Among this group,

interviewees initially opened the conversation telling their fathers’ stories in a well-structured

manner, emphasizing the admiration, normality, strength and might of their father’s image and

his fulfillment in life. For most of these interviewees, the compensatory-heroic stories were first

18
told by the fathers in public events such as a school or army lecture, or written down and

published in books or websites. These narratives seemed to have a common ethos of

sturdiness, bearing a representation of the heroic father as heard-by the child when being a

part of a bigger, unfamiliar public audience, rather than told-to, directly and intimately, by the

father:

Hannah: “The first time I heard the full story was when I brought him to

lecture to cadets in an army course I instructed […] I was very moved, but

ahh...I mean it was weird that the first time was among other people. […] Other

than that, we didn’t touch this topic at home…we’re not a family that…or with

my dad I don’t have these very…personal conversations.”

Gale: “my dad would talk about it and even give lectures […] it was, sort

of…in the family pantheon, that there’s a story of my father, of the captivity.”

Daphne: We talked about it…minus the the disgust, yeah? Without the

pornography of the…we never received details […] I wasn’t exposed to

any…consequences […] my dad was a hero, I mean, my dad is much better than

God…mm...I don’t have anything critical, I mean…he’s the best person, the

most talented, the most loving…the most most most, anyway you look at it, no

one can be half as him, and mmm…it’s not only in my head […] the whole

society is giving me this message, all my life, even today […] and every year,

every every year, the school teacher would change, but the class would remain

the same, and the teacher would find out that there’s this dad who’s willing to

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come and lecture! So we would have these annual lectures, and all my friends

would know his story by heart.”

Interviewer: “Let me just ask you, if I may…you had all this information,

but…did you ever get the chance to sit with you dad […] and to feel that at that

moment he’s telling YOU his story?”

Daphne: “It’s a good question…probably not. I guess not. It has been told

so many times that I don’t remember him sitting with me […] It’s like this

picture, like a puzzle that I…that has a missing pi…pi…piece to it, but it looks

whole to you because it has been missing for so long...it’s this kind of missing

piece.”

These ethoses had powerful communicative role in the dyadic relationship, both to

maintain a heroic father figure and as a form of markers for the children, as to what are the

desired characteristics of their own developing selfhood:

Deborah: “There was really this thing of heroism […] the question was

always – ‘were you heroic or not heroic?’ socially but also personally. I think that

was what my dad expected of himself…this thing of excellence […] it was

important for him that I too will be heroic.”

Daphne: “My dad, at work, in his professional life...he’s quite a meteor

[…] and really, I’m sort of debating on…on how much all this is good for me or

not…growing up in the light of someone as him…I’m definitely “the daughter of”

[…[ and where am I in all this? It’s this immense scale…mmm..ppfff (panting
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heavily)…working on that, I am, yeah? […[ how to digest it, how do I use that,

why couldn’t I aspire, want, be…so good and successful, at least to try! Run

after! […[ It’s something that I need to ahh...learn...how to live with […[

something must have not been planted right in me, didn’t grow right, because it

didn’t, it didn’t work for me.”

Judith: A choice NOT to become a professional captive

Judith arrives to the interview with a sense of mission and importance towards her dad

and the entire family. Judith’s words depict her father’s continuous efforts to construct and

maintain an inner experience of strength and might:

“In principle, I can say that our experience is that it [i.e., the war

captivity] is not something present in our everyday life, really, as far as we

experience it...he doesn’t have any…ahh...war shock, I don’t know...trauma,

because of it […] It is something that was brought up, he told us through the

years, it was talked about, stories from captivity, but I don’t really remember

them…once in a while they float back up, but as something VERY positive,

[about] how they coped […] but principally speaking, our familial tradition, and

the way I experienced it, was – A choice NOT to become a professional captive,

that’s how my dad used to coin it. […] As children we were always very proud of

him, he would come to our school and tell his story and everybody thought he’s

a real hero. […] I don’t want to judge other families because I can’t really know

21
what others have been through, but I think keeping away from this whining,

from weakness, that’s what he was trying to distance himself and us from.”

Despite the initial presentation of the narrative as positive, the use of multiple

negations and second-person forms of grammar linguistic reveal the difficulty in emotionally

and cognitively claiming the traumatic past of her father. It seems that rather than “a choice

[not to become a professional captive]”, Judith’s father is persistently and demandingly

commanding to never be a victim, as a “not-me” part of his identity (the weak, the needy, the

traumatized).

Due to its’ dissociative force, the inherent painful and frightening traumatic material

which didn’t find its place in the psychic narrative of the father, seemed to have become a

ghostly, disturbing presence. This dissociative process of distancing away from any sort of

victimhood is powerfully echoed by her father’s ethos; Judith’s narrative seems at first as one

of heroic strength and resilience, but it is maintained by a continuous disavowing of the

inherent pain, vulnerability and weakness, both of her father and herself:

Judith: “I’m sure I have this perception of doing, of like…always doing,

being able and being competent in doing things […] to make it on my own, to be

competent […] I really feel this thing about competence and...ha...and living life,

not rolling into places of wretchedness and ‘they did this and I’m feeling bad and

I’ve been hurt and so on..’ […] an interesting point is that…let’s say on national

memorial days, when there’s this terrible bereavement of all the families who’ve

lost...and I find myself thinking, that I’m a little bit not o.k. for not…for not being

22
part of this bereavement family, and like, what right do I have?! […] and then

one day I thought, but well – maybe it’s not that far from our family? […]”

Interviewer: “It sounds like you had to remind yourself the pain you have

in your family story, because there’s really something…as if the pain is missing in

the family story you carry […] like you had to remind yourself you’re part of this

thing, that this thing actually exists for you.

Judith: Yeah, yes.”

Later in the interview, when Judith is asked about salient moments in her life and the

possible role her father might have had during these times, she describes the bankruptcy of one

of her father’s businesses, at which she herself was employed:

“This was a very difficult thing to deal with facing my father…the company

was sold and […] he did a certain move that I was not informed of […] and he

managed to get away from this upsetting situation, and amidst all this, he just

stood up and walked away. And I was just left there […] I was like sitting in my

work place, to which I came because of him […] and I had always looked at

myself as “the daughter of-“, and he just left suddenly, like…not even talking to

me about it, not even having a conversation of “Well, I’m leaving, but you should

do what is best for you” or “Please stay”. Like, nothing…and I felt a little

abandoned...I was like ‘what about me here?!?’”

Judith is describing the lack of communication and the sudden disappearance of her

father from the business as an abandonment experience. It is a moment that confronts both

23
herself and her father with feelings of weakness and helplessness, evoking an association of her

father’s immediate abrupt evacuation from his plane at the moment of the airstrike before

being captured. Her words expose how unbearable it is for him to cope with the moment of

collapsing, pushing him towards a “flight response” of running away from the felt danger. In

this powerful enactment, she remains at place, waiting obediently and helplessly to her father’s

command, hoping that he will return to save and direct her forward.

It seems this dramatic moment of enacted breakdown and abandonment emphasizes

how difficult it is for her father to handle feelings of anxiety in face of an unknown future. In the

context of the family’s ethos of “not becoming a professional captive”, Judith’s story allows to

subtly touch upon the defensive processes that are needed in order for her father to disavow

and dissociate any vulnerable aspect of his sense of self. Being capsulated as a “not-me” part,

the traumatic material of her father finds its way through enactments; projecting the

dissociated helpless and weak parts unto Judith who struggles all her life to preserve a sense of

independency, agency and strength.

At the end of the interview Judith tells in great length about a good friend of hers who’s

a third-generation in a family of Holocaust survivors. She is continuously occupied by an effort

to emphasize the differences between her family and the one of her friends’, finally stating the

core difference is that “With us, it’s never really possible to breakdown”.

The relational context of the interview is evident through a sense of distance and

alienation that is present during the meeting, as Judith continuously highlights and

demonstrates the success and strength of the family, struggling to contain conflict and

multiplicity, and eventually intersubjective intimacy. Along the interview, the researcher

24
repeatedly finds herself questioning how much of the interview experience is emotionally “truly

felt” for Judith, and how much is it possible for her to gain closeness and trust within the

situation. It is through this relational enactment, which is felt by defensivity, rigidity and

alienation of the relationship, while repeatedly highlighting strength, resilience and heroism,

that the “excessive compensation” communication pattern becomes felt and understood more

deeply by the researcher.

The Excessive Toxicity:

Another reemerging modus of communication between traumatic fathers and their

offspring is one characterized by an inherent “too-muchness” of dreading and undigested

traumatic stories. Either in the form of ongoing bombardment of frightening recollections or in

a form of more covert communication of constant anxieties, this pattern of communication

transfers an excessive toxic outlook on the world as a dangerous, monstrous place:

David: “My dad would talk about it a lot […] HE would tell us about the

torture and the horrible thing they and he went through over there and all the

beatings and the torture in a very…factual way, like any other story we would

tell, tell it over and over again, not emotionally, and even if the details were

horrible, he…he wouldn’t re-experience it, I mean, he would tell it, it’s a mantra,

it’s a story he knows by heart and it’s disconnected from the actual experience.”

25
 Ben: “[…[ he would throw out this really intense sentences, something

that a child can’t really digest and comprehend, like “I had friends and they died

and we suffered and…” And I’ll be thinking “O.K, I rather not ask.” That used to

be my lesson.”

Dan: “I thought about it, that a lot of people, [before] they recruit to the

army they hear all these stories, usually heroic stories. And me, I heard from my

dad all the…the worst, like...friends dying and injuries and very real and honest

stories about the ugly side of war […] and I think it created a fear within me.

Like…because I said to myself – these things can happen, I can die, I can get

injured, I can fall into captivity […] I might not have been through trauma […]

never in my life have I been in a life threatening situation, but I have these

symptoms of something like traumatic that are very similar to my dad’s

symptoms, rage and stuff. This sort of confusion, like…very strange. Dreams […]

about war…all the time.”

Ariel: Maybe spare my kid from knowing these stories

The excessive toxicity modus is illustrated powerfully through Ariel, who heard his

father tell his story over and over again, in a repeated, “deadened” and factual way, dissonant

to the actual painful content being told. When Ariel is asked during the interview about what

his father has told him about his experience in captivity, he replays:

26
 “[He would tell me] EVERYTHING. From the moment of surrendering in

the battle, the war, the beating ups, the abuse…how he got pissed on and…

Everything everything everything, uprooting of nails, electrical shocks to his

genitals, EVERYTHING. He didn’t hide anything, up to the level that...ahh...that I

would maybe spare my kid from knowing these stories.”

Ariel’s words and continuous repetitions emphasize the intensity and totality of his

father’s statements; He allows looking into his own experience as a child that has been

bombarded with toxic traumatic material, becoming a captive of his father’s relentless tortured

psychic world. Although some aspects of the trauma are directly (and repeatedly)

communicated, as a defensive communication pathway that unconsciously aims to obscures

the traumatic material through a firm and excessive detailed narrative, it is prone to be

confronted with the dissociated; When the father loses his persistent control over the timing

and content of the narrative, things fall apart; in a bothering moment of enactment, Ariel is

confronted with the intolerable and violent power of the most dissociated trauma:

“[…] But once, when I had matured a bit, there was something on TV,

someone telling about a sexual abuse he has gone through in captivity…we were

all sitting around the dining table at the time, the entire family, and I…being

shameless as I am, I asked him about it. […] A second later the entire table was

literally broken on me, like…he completely lost himself, I mean, the guy just lost

all his senses, if he could - at that moment- he would have killed me. He

would’ve just killed me and then afterwards he probably would’ve understood

what he’s done, yeah?”

27
 The interviewer then goes on to ask: “And since then the subject wasn’t

brought up again?”

Ariel: “NO, since then no. Nothing.”

Interviewer: So it seems he told you everything, but at the same time,

hasn’t told everything. It seems confusing.”

Ariel: We don’t know. We don’t know, I mean, he tells me up to the level

of how he’s tied in a cellar, hands, eyes, rats eating his flesh…and all his wounds

stinking from, ahh, rotten meat, and how the guard comes and he hears the lock

opening and then this man is urinating on his head. I mean, he TELLS. But when

I asked? That was the response.”

Ariel is simultaneously aware and unaware of his own “Unknowing”; He manages to

reflect on the moment of violent breakdown that occurred when he approached his father’s

unmetabolized traumatic material, but at the same time – he’s immediately “taken by”

dissociation, flooding the story with the ghostly “too-muchness” of what is “Known” to him and

distancing his own personal unknowing by a “we” plural form that captures the familial ghost.

He knows too much, while he knows nothing; he’s spoken to by his father, pseudo-nurtured by

him, while being both intoxicated by what is actually given from him and haunted by what is

not given.

In a parallel path of traumatic transmission, Ariel himself uses the toxic pattern of

communication in the interview, and persistent dissociative processes are once again enacted

relationally between him and the interviewer; during the interview, self-boundaries and safety

28
are called into question, as Ariel verbally approaches the interviewer invasively with various

remarks, creating a felt threat. In addition, Ariel repeats his unbearable descriptions, becoming

more and more possessed with horrific images. These enactments, as evident through both the

inappropriate insinuations and the flooding of images, paralyze the interviewer for long

moments during the interview, making it almost impossible to keep in touch with the “here and

now” and to continue with the conversation. Through this powerful relational enactment Ariel

manages to convey his own inner psychic reality, making the interviewer experience herself as

imprisoned, captive by the too-muchness of the story and of the relational realm, symbolically

entrapped in an existence filled with victims and perpetrators. The intensity of the interview

and its’ covert influences on the interviewer seems to shed light on the communicative

pathways through which the traumatic material was being constantly transmitted

intergenerationally, through excessive toxicity.

The Excessive Silence:

The third communicative pathway to have been brought up is identified by a “double

silence” of the unspoken, highly dissociated, dimension of the traumatic memory that was

never verbalized, shared and mutually reflected upon between father and child. This pattern

leads to a fragmented and unstable relational realm, both intra-psychically and

intersubjectively, filled with fears of knowing and guilt for not knowing. Fear of knowing is

signaled by a threat to one’s sense of self and to the father’s stability, while feeling guilty for

not knowing entails a constant feeling of disappointment and alienation both from the father

and his untold story and from one’s own sense of coherency and inner resilience.

29
 Lisa: “From a very early age we knew that dad has been in captivity […] It

was a code word, dad has been in captivity…you don’t talk, don’t know what it

is, nothing more than a code word, but we knew there was something there […]

It was just a taboo […] I don’t recall him ever saying no, but it was something

you don’t talk about. […] so when you do start imagining what he has been

through, you stop, you repress, you don’t want to think about it, and you don’t

ask anything. I think that...it’s not because it’s not allowed to talk about it, but

it’s more from a selfish motive that doesn’t want to know […] He didn’t tell, I

mean, if he would have told I wouldn’t have stopped him and say “don’t talk”. He

didn’t tell and it was convenient for me not to ask. I think that’s the definition.

Because I’m really not sure how I would...if I could handle it.”

Deborah: “It was hard to talk to him […] so hard to talk to him that I

would be sure he would get a heart attack if I dare bring up the subject. It took

me two years of therapy to stop fearing madly that he will die if I talk to him

about it.”

Ben: “It was always very ambiguous and there was some kind of silence-

bond, an active silence bond....I mean, it’s evident that on our everyday life

there was a sort of silenced taboo…and when we eventually managed to ask him

some questions we used to get these dismissive replays like “Well, it was a long

time ago” or “Why do you ask about it now? Leave it […] the atmosphere was
30
always tensed and loaded and you gradually learn to look out from certain

things, ask delicate and indirect questions. And listen. Instead of coming “heads

on” I just listened, just listened. In bed at night, in the living room…reading a

book was always a good camouflage, I mean, I had my ears open all the time”.

Nathan: I manage to persuade myself pretty hermetically that I don’t need to know

The “excessive silence” is vividly illustrated in Nathan’s interview, who never talked to

his father about his experience. Nathan’s interview was characterized by a high level of

emotional dysregulation, an intense struggle of speech and lengthy duration of nearly three

hours. When asked at the beginning of the interview if he has talked to his father about his

experience in captivity, Nathan replays:

“I’m not willing to know…I’m saying not willing while I know in an

unspoken way that at some point I will know. It will be documented somewhere,

in a video or something, or maybe he might tell me. […] I have a sort of axiom

within myself that I can’t really deal with this issue...just like that. I tried talking

to him in the past, we tried, but he didn’t go there, it just couldn’t happen. […]”

The struggle and dread around the “Knowing” and “Not-Knowing” is evident powerfully

in Nathan’s words. In his effort to explain his own distancing and avoidance, Nathan touches

upon the mutual movement of covert communication between him and his dad, when both

parties seem to be taking an active part in their dissociative processes. When asked about it

more deeply by the interviewer, Nathen adds:

31
 “Me not being able to touch this story, that’s related to my own fear

towards myself, my own sanity and things that I try and keep away from my

mind. In a way, I somehow feel as if it’s against my interests to…to go through

this…life is so messed up for me anyhow […] In a way, maybe in a wrongful

way, I feel like I’m better off not knowing and most times I manage to persuade

myself pretty hermetically that I don’t need to know what went on with him

there…”

Nathan reveals the felt danger of disintegration that arises when faced with the wish to

know. His need to “persuade” himself “hermetically” to avoid knowing captures the emotional

struggle that occupies his mind and the urge to cut-away, dissociate, from the experience, in

order to maintain inner, though momentary, stability. At the same time, Nathan is also subtly

aware of the costs of these dissociative processes in gaining understanding of himself:

“Although my common sense tells me that knowing his story would allow

me to know myself better, and although it is probably more honoring towards

him if I ask him about it, something is totally blocking me. I might have heard

the story thousands of times, he was interviewed and I remember hearing it in

the car, but somehow it slips my mind all the time. If it was about someone

else’s story, a stranger, someone I don’t know, I’ll be happy to hear the story.

Happy. I would have been very interested in it […] maybe even in a cruel way of

knowing each and every horrific detail. I’m not scared of this kind of things. But

when it comes back to my dad, I don’t, don’t, don’t bring myself to touch upon

it, and I never have.”

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 After previously stating that he had never heard the actual trauma story of his dad,

Nathan now reveals that he, in fact, has listened multiple times to audio tapes of his dad telling

the story, but cannot recall anything of them. As if sensing a ghostly presence, Nathan is

demonstrating how strong and persistent these traumatic fragments and dissociative processes

are, pushing information about the trauma away, avoiding and rejecting the entrance of any

threatening psychic material.

Nathan is able to reflect on the fragmentation process that is created through

dissociation, damaging his ability to create a coherent narrative of himself and of his life. He’s

also able to faintly touch upon the massive guilt he carries towards his dad, feeling that his

inability to face his father’s story. He imagines himself hearing a similar story by a stranger , an

image that reveals his own deep wish to confront the trauma, know it all the way through (“in a

cruel way”), but in a protected and distanced manner that would somehow assure him of his

sanity.

Nathan describes his dad during the interview as a withdrawn person, stating that his

salient characteristic is of being “balanced”:

“That’s his way, that’s how he is. Very very balanced. He is balanced in an

enviable way, or even more...aversive, frightening way. Like, you don’t, don’t

see any changes in him, in almost anything. Maybe small radicalizations, like him

becoming more and more withdrawn, working, being in his own universe...But

other than that, his key motive is this thing of being balanced. Very very

balanced...I guess that’s why I don’t trust myself about being balanced,

33
generally in my life...that’s why I avoid dealing with things - so that I don’t get

unbalanced.”

Through his words and along the entire interview, Nathan expresses both the feeling of

absence of emotional attunement and affective responsiveness from his father, and his own

inner fear of getting “out of balance”. The severity and intensity of his father’s emotional void is

emphasized vividly through multiple repetitions in the text, as it seems there’s an almost aching

quality to his relentless wording (“very, very balanced...”). Nathan’s words also emphasize the

complex relational transmission of disavowed self-states, when his father’s emotional

withdrawnness and massive use of dissociation is experienced painfully, but at the same time is

psychically transmitted through identification and introjection; the need to assure “balance”

sticks on to him as well and becomes his own “gatekeeper” of mental survival.

All through the interview, the subjective impression of the interviewer was that Nathan

is struggling to maintain “balance” while becoming more and more instable and emotionally

flooded. When Nathan shares how difficult it has been for him to face his father’s stoic

demeanor and ongoing affective misattuenement, he is also able to offer us an intense glimpse

of the psychic tension between approach and avoidance; achieving contact and gaining

closeness to his father is both a strong emotional yearning and a deeply felt dangerous and

intolerable state:

“I always feel with him that…ahh...like there’s always a point that if I’ll

reach it – I’ll immediately start crying…It’s a constant feeling I’ve always had. I

don’t really know where this point is, but like, that if I’ll communicate with him in

a more honest, not exactly honest, but if I’ll let go of something inside there –

34
that I won’t be able to cope with it emotionally...It’s some sort of a closed point

that is untouchable. I don’t know how to express is verbally, but I always feel

that it’s a point I can’t touch, that I won’t handle it emotionally. And I can’t even

define it, but whenever I get close to it, like if I play some music and we listen to

it together, or like other moments when we have this kind of emotional

resonance, then I feel as if I immediately get electrified, jumping away, running

away from something happening between us.”

In an effort to keep away from the emotional threatening intensities of the trauma, it

seems Nathan’s father has adjusted to an overly regulated, deeply withdrawn affective and

intersubjective way of being. In the process of dissociative transmission, unprocessed traumatic

material is transmitted intergenerationally to Nathan through ongoing misattuenements and

covert relational signals as to which are the desired and acceptable self states and which are

the disavowed ones. Through this dynamic, Nathan inhabits a “not-me” of his father and

experiences himself as constantly unstable and unregulated emotionally, ashamed of his fears

and haunted by a fear of breakdown.

Through a vicious cycle of silencing and avoidance, Nathan learns to avoid closeness

with his father, sensing that closeness will inevitably be accompanied by destabilization. It

seems closeness has “always-already” been carrying an excessive quality to Nathan’s

attachment with his father, making it “too-much”, too threatening, to handle. Nonetheless,

Nathan is continuously searching for moments of engaged communication and emotional

meeting of minds, “resonance”, as he beautifully put it. Instead, he is repeatedly confronted

with his father’s stoic, avoidant misattuenement and with his dreading silence. As it seems,

35
Nathan has developed powerful inner signals for confusing and terrifying moments, and his

words illustrate how much active dissociation he needs to carry out to maintain both intra-

sanity within himself and inter-stability with his father.

The intersubjective context of the interview was evident through a sense of unease and

anxiety that was present during the prolonged meeting; Nathan is felt to be possessed by an

unstoppable search for understanding (of himself, of his dad, of their relationship), though any

attempt to contemplate together during the interview seems volatile and destabilizing. Words

are pouring out, but their meanings fail to “sink-in” and become known. The interviewer

experiences Nathan as wishing deeply to establish closeness, safety and a sense of emotional

attunement, while simultaneously maintaining a frantic and terrified presence. It is through this

relational enactment that the “excessive silencing” communication pattern becomes felt and

understood by the researcher.

36
Discussion: Unclaimed Stories, Felt Ghosts

“[…] Trauma seems to be much more than a pathology, or the simple illness of a

wounded psyche: it is always the story of a wound that cries out, that addresses us in

an attempt to tell us of a reality or truth that is not otherwise available. This truth, in

its delayed appearance and its belated address, cannot be linked only to what is

known, but also to what remains unknown in our very actions and our language.”

Caruth, C., (1996), Unclaimed Experience, p. 4

In the following part, results will be summarized, followed by a contextualization of the

research findings and a theoretical psychoanalytic conceptualization of the intergenerational

implications. Lastly, research limitations and future directions to be addressed:

Summary

The current study examined the intergenerational transmission of trauma as manifested

through patterns of communication between Israeli Ex-POWS and their adult children. Through

a holistic content qualitative analysis of stories given by 14 adult children of trauma survivors,

three types of communicative pathways were identified; the excessive compensation; the

excessive toxicity and the excessive silence. Modes of communication were not always

separable, independent patterns, but rather placed on a dynamic continuum, as for some

father-child dyads there was a shifting of modes; at times – silencing and avoiding, in others –

flooding with excessive toxicity or compensation.

37
 Identification of these relational patterns of communication was achieved through

analysis and interpretation of the unconscious dissociative processes of the said and unsaid and

through relational enactments, both in the lives of the interviewees and their relationship with

their father (i.e. as present in the interview as “the text”), and as brought up during the

interview as an intersubjective moment of interaction which encompasses ongoing unconscious

communication and enactments take place (i.e., as “the intersubjective context”; Lieblich et. al.,

1998; Josselson, 2004, 2013; Rogers et. al., 1999,). Conceptualization of these patterns relied on

the relational understanding of dissociation, seen as the primary psychic defenses process that

manifests both in the intrapsychic and intersubjective lives of survivors of trauma and their

children.

It is suggested that excessive compensation, the most common communicative pathway

found in the interviews, reflects a communication pattern characterized by an active negation

of the traumatic aspects of the self as a “not-me”. Among this group, interviewees emphasized

the admiration, normality and strength of their father’s image and his fulfillment in life, while

negating and obscuring vulnerability and traumatic aspects of both their father and themselves.

This pattern of communication seemed to have a common ethos of sturdiness, bearing a

representation of the heroic father as publicly performed by him through lectures and

publications, while actively dissociating from aspects the self that contain ambivalent and

conflictual psychic experience. It is stressed that the maintenance of such dissociation relays on

continuous disavowing of the inherent vulnerability and weakness, rendering intrapsychic and

intersubjective psychic space as rigid, defensive and alienated, as enacted by the “here and

now” of the interview with Judith.

38
 The second pattern of communication to have been identified was the excessive

toxicity, characterized by an inherent “too-muchness” of dreading and undigested traumatic

stories told by the father to the child. In this modus, the story is told by the father in a

repeated, “deadened” and factual way, dissonant to the actual painful content being told. As a

result, the child that has been bombarded with toxic traumatic material becomes a captive of

his father’s relentless tortured psychic world. It is suggested that while intoxicating the child

with horrific recollections, the father is also obscuring and dissociatively defending the most

threatening material of the trauma. When the intoxicating pattern of communication is

confronted by the dissociated and disavowed traumatic material, intrapsychic and

intersubjective space breaks down and collapses. Enactment ensues from this modus of

communication, as the adult child himself internalizes an active role in an existence filled with

victims and perpetrators, becoming both a captive and a jailer of the too-muchness of the

traumatic relational realm, as was evident in the interview experience with Ariel.

The third pattern of intergenerational communication to have been identified is the

excessive silence. This pathway relays on a “double silence” dynamic of the unspoken

dissociated experience, as the traumatic material was never metabolized, verbalized and

shared by the father in an integrated way. It is suggested that this pattern leads to a

frightening, fragmented and unstable relational realm, both intra-psychically and

intersubjectively. Both the intrapsychic and the intersubjective space become loaded with

ghostly traumatic presence, while simultaneously possessing an emotional emptiness and

absence. Fragmentation, dysregulation and continuous fear of breakdown are dealt defensively

using dissociative processes, rendering the psychic reality of adult child rigid, while flooded with

39
unnamed anxiety. Through this dissociative process of transmission, the child is left out

(avoided, blocked) by the father, and taken-in (haunted, projected upon). The child knows

nothing and feels distant from his father, fearful and threatened, while searching to gain a

sense of dyadic safety and closeness. As brought up by the interview with Nathan, this

communicative pathway is then enacted by the adult child intersubjectively, as he struggles to

maintain a close, stable and fully-felt emotional presence with the interviewer. Through this,

the adult child is enacting his father’s ghostly traumatic experience, encapsulating the

dissociative materials within his own relational matrix.

Current results validate previous related findings regarding intergenerational patterns of

communication in Ex-POWs families of World-War II; a few studies which have found “over-

silence” and “over-disclosure” as repeating patterns of intergenerational communication in

families of Holocaust survivors (Wiseman, 2002, 2008; Bar-On, 1989, 1999; Danieli, 1982, 1998).

These patterns can be seen as closely-related to the “excessive-silencing” and “excessive-

toxicity” patterns identified in our current research (respectively). However, to the best of our

knowledge, none of these studies have found a pattern similar to the “excessive-

compensation” mode of communication. In addition, our research affords an important

expansion to the field of intergenerational transmission of trauma among Israeli Ex-POWS, as it

lends a special focus to the issue of communication patterns, which to our knowledge has not

been addressed previously. Thus, the following will offer a contextual view of the Israeli social

and cultural arena can assist in understanding the possible role that these patterns have in the

participants’ lives and subsequent narratives. In addition, a psychoanalytic conceptualization

40
will be suggested, in order to emphasize the intergenerational implications of the

communication patterns and their underlying dissociative processes.

Contextualizing the Research Findings

Qualitative research entails constant concern with how research findings are embedded

in their specific contexts. In this current research, contextualizing the narratives given by the

participants allows to heighten the understanding of possible roles that the patterns of

communication played, intersubjectively, socially and culturally (Zilber et. al., 2008). The

immediate intersubjective context of the narratives produced in this research was treated as a

key aspect of the initial analysis, and was thus reported and analyzed extensively throughout

the research results and discussion. In order to afford a broader and richer understanding, the

additional social and cultural contexts will be mapped. In doing so, the current

contextualization process aims to propose the possible conditions in which the identified

patterns of communication were initially constructed and maintained by the fathers, and are

currently told by the offspring, as embedded socially and culturally.

The immediate collective social field in which one’s life and story developed involves

explicit contents found in the text about ones’ identity in terms of his socio-historical

positioning. In the current study, the immediate social context is suggested to be consisted of a

few aspects: firstly, since the late 90’s, there has been a growing social and therapeutic

awareness in Israel as to both the direct influences of the captivity experience and its

intergenerational implications; following a long juridical struggle taken by the ex-POWs (mainly

comprised of the Yum Kippur War captives), a number of rehabilitative, therapeutic and

41
economic structures have been formed in order to address the unique needs of this population.

Specifically, many of the Ex-POWs fathers, who were burdened for many years with a sense of

abandonment by the army and state, have been undergoing therapeutic processes, which have

gradually fostered the opportunity to psychologically digest and reflect their traumatic

experience with their close ones. Simultaneously, multiple offspring therapeutic groups

opened, allowing the adult children of Ex-POWs to share and process their experience for the

first time. These social and therapeutic developments in acknowledgment might have

encouraged the offspring in becoming more open and willing to participate and share their

personal narrative in studies such as the current one.

An additional immediate social aspect of the current research is the public debate

concerning Israel’s policy towards the topic of “captives exchange” deals, in light of the efforts

taken to return Gilad Shalit in 2011, following his 5 years captivity by Hamas in Gaza, and to

bring back the bodies of Goldwaser and Regev, who were imprisoned and killed by Hizzballah in

Lebanon in 2006 and subsequently brought to burial in 2008. During these recent years, an

ongoing social interest has been raised as to the state’s responsibility over its prisoners of wars,

both about the needed steps to ensure their returning (either dead or alive) and as to the

rehabilitation concerns that needs to be addressed properly. These much debated and

conflictual discussions have had tremendous effects on Ex-POWs and their families, which at

times re-experienced their own traumatic past and its wide-scaling aftermaths. In light of this

immediate social context, participants in the current research have all addressed in their

narrative the recent return of the Ex-POW Gilad Shalit as a pivotal moment in their families’

42
lives, which in their perspective have catalyzed psychological processes and encouraged them

to take part in the current research.

The wider cultural context addresses meaning systems or “meta-narratives” that

underlie and give sense to any particular life story. Addressing this context, questions arise as to

what might have been the underlying cultural processes that shaped and attached meaning to

the narratives given by the offspring in this current research. In accordance with the theoretical

stance of the current study, dissociation can be seen as a useful paradigm in understanding the

disavowed experiences of the traumatic past and its remnants, in the context of the Israeli

culture.

In her critical article Sasson-Levy (2008) conceptualizes the Israeli cultural wide context

as one in which:

“community perceives the military as the emblem of pure patriotism and as one

of the major symbols of the collective […] In this militaristic culture, the (Jewish) combat

soldier has achieved the status of hegemonic masculinity and is identified with good

citizenship.” (Sasson-Levy, 2008, p. 289).

In relations to this militaristic-masculine cultural contextual stance, an emphasize should

be put on the excessive-compensation pattern; as a unique pattern to have been found in the

current research, this pattern differs from the “over-disclosure” and “over-silencing”

communicative patterns previously found by Holocaust researchers who dealt with issues of

intergenerational traumatic communication (Wiseman, 2008; 2002; Bar-On, 1989, 1999;

Danieli, 1982, 1998). It is suggested that the fathers’ unique “public performances” (lectures,

interviews and publications), through which they indirectly communicated with their offspring

43
about their traumatic experience in captivity in a heroic manner, can be understood as an effort

to regain and maintain social status albeit their imprisonment experience. Through the father’s

public amplification of the idealized national norms and coping trajectories, cultural messages

are transferred and internalized by the offspring, as to what are the wanted, valued and

socially-recognizable facets of the culturally-embedded self. It is suggested that the two other

communication patterns to have been identified in the current research; the excessive-toxicity

and the excessive-silencing, are also shaped by these same cultural values; the excessive-

toxicity pattern of communication might reveal a struggle to maintain an evil, dehumanized

image of the assumed national “Other” (the Arab, the terrorist, the enemy), as to ensure

cultural split-off perceptions about the morality and justice of the Israeli struggle for survival in

face of an ongoing conflict. The excessive-silence pattern of communication might adhere to

the cultural norms and valued heroism through a continuous obscuring of the traumatic,

bewildered and vulnerable facets of experience. It may be presumed that through these

communication patterns, identity is socially constructed intergenerationally in order to

maintain and project strength, resilience and heroism, rendering vulnerability, dependency and

sensitivity as disavowed “not-me” parts.

Psychoanalytic Conceptualization:

Research and writing on intergenerational transmission of trauma often refers to

unspoken stories of families who have dealt with severe traumatic experience, but the mode of

transmission has been so far shadowy and poorly defined (Bradfield, 2103; Wiseman and

Barber, 2006, 2008; Kellerman, 2001; Bar-On, 1995). Understanding the role of relational

44
communicative pathways and the mutual regulation and/or dissociation within human

relationships opens the door to deepening our understanding of how transmissions occur

implicitly and explicitly.

The current research emphasizes that when the traumatic experience of the parent is

not integrated and processed, it becomes a dissociative “not me” part of the self, obtaining a

“haunting” quality (Boulanger, 2002; Bromberg, 1998, 2003, Bromberg & Chefetz, 2004). As an

aspect of self that resides in a dark and hidden space, the dissociated content has an inherent

force to be enacted intersubjectively, finding tongue by forcing itself out into conscious

experience through intergenerationally patterns of communication.

In the context of parenting, dissociative processes and their enactments cause

disruptions in the ability to be attuned, containing and emotionally accessible to the child’s

needs (Davies, 1996, 1997; Ogden, 2003, 2004). The dissociative post-traumatic parent is often

flooded with a fear of destabilization of his own sense of self, signaled by dissociation and an

encounter with a “not-me” element of the self. Laub (1998), coined the poignant phrase the

empty circle, and proposed that although children of traumatized parents knew about their

parents’ trauma, in fact, they experienced a hole, an absence, within their relationship with

traumatic attachment figures. In a similar conceptualization, Gampel (1996) described losses

that could not be symbolized and were not put into narrative form, becoming what she termed

psychic holes. Faimberg (2005) adds to these ideas by stressing how the interior of the child of a

trauma survivor is not so much empty as it is filled with a condensed history of the parent,

causing an “alienated identification” in the child. These relational psychoanalytic suggestions

affectingly capture the oddness of traumatic transmissions from parent to child through various

45
communication pathways and reveal the ongoing tension between alienation and emptiness,

simultaneously mixed with over-fullness or an excess of certain affects: often fear, dread, guilt

and even terror.

These covert communicative processes then takes place through the uncontained and

unattuned dyadic mechanisms of dissociative defense, causing an absence of a relational home

for the child, rendering the self unformulated and unvoiced in the intersubjective space

(Stolorow, 2007). Grand (2000) depicts the resultant holes in parental bonding within the

context of the Holocaust second generation’s search for the parents’ traumatized and pre-

traumatized selves. As she put it: “To search for one’s parent and to find fear in a handful of

dust: such a dilemma precipitates a hunger for visceral contact with the parent’s traumatized

self” [pp. 25]. In the absence of relational holding and attunement the child may develop a

disrupted relationship with his or her internal states. Indeed, repeated parental

misattuenements, resulting from complex post-traumatic dissociation, become in turn a “not-

me” experience of the child, experiencing some aspects of himself as unwanted and disavowed.

It is suggested that through these intergenerational dyadic covert communication processes,

dissociation becomes a part of an individual’s ongoing way of being and relating.

To conclude the current psychoanalytic and contextualized discussion, it is suggested

that personal and intersubjective dissociative processes cannot be unlinked from their social

and broad cultural context. Grand (2010), in stating Layton’s (2006) ideas regarding the “social

unconscious” claims:

46
 “Until we restore theses disavowed traumatic aspects to our personal and

societal reverence, they will continue to seek recognition by making us “sick”; they will

write themselves into our psyche–somas and into our intersubjective fields.[…] Layton’s

perspective permits us a new realization. For personal healing to exist, clinical change

must be linked to cultural change. […] In this context, there is a heightened potential for

personal healing. This personal healing contributes to our project of cultural healing.”

(Grand, 2010, p. 160).

Research Limitations

As any qualitative study, findings of the current research cannot be generalized.

Specifically, a few possible limitations of the current research can be traced due to sample

selections: research focused on a small amount of interviews (n=14); the participants were all

fully functional individuals who voluntarily took part in the interview setting and had

considerable mental resources and personal motivation which may not represent the general

population; participants were of similar age, which might elicit a limited view of the

phenomenon, dependent on their current life-stage and the consequent specificity of the

dyadic relationship with the father at the time of the interview. As in other studies of

retrospective narratives, the interviewees may have highlighted their descriptions of past

experiences with the colors of present intentions and feelings. Another limitation of this

present study is that it did not specify the results in function of the gender of the offspring. This

could be of interest, given that some studies have pointed out gender differences in cases of

intergenerational transmission of trauma.

47
Future Directions:

Current findings from this research powerfully stress the importance of qualitative

methods to investigate such complex phenomenon as intergenerational transmission of trauma

in terms of communication patterns and processes. Both qualitative interviewing and analysis

and relational practice rely on the shared intersubjective construction of narratives, allowing

for deep and rich lived experience to become accessible for examination, reflection and

interpretation (Josselson, 2013). Gaining investigative access to dissociated psychic processes is

suggested to mark a highly important and meaningful aspect of any research dealing with the

realm of trauma and its’ intergenerational post-traumatic influences, as such studies should be

especially minded to the implicit aspects of any given narrative, as indicated by form analysis

focused on negations, denials, revisions, emittions and silence (Rogers et. al., 1999; see also:

Dimmaggio, 2006; Lysaker and Lysaker,2002). The findings of our study hope to afford a rich

basis for additional fields of inquiry dealing with the psychological processes involved when

facing the effects of traumatic experiences. Future research should consider investigating both

parties of a dyadic unit, interviewing separately the traumatic parent and the adult child, to

allow more complex dyadic themes and dynamics to emerge for examination. In addition,

studies may gain deeper understanding from exploring additional patterns of intergenerational

communication and subsequent narrative styles, as in cases marked by post-traumatic growth

and resilience.

In addition, findings from the current research highlight the importance of early

therapeutic intervention following a complex traumatic event such as war captivity. It is

48
assumed that if the fathers would have been introduced into adequate psychological treatment

early on in their life following the trauma, both their own sense of psychic integration and their

parental abilities for attunements and mentalization might have been majorly improved. As a

presumed consequence, patterns of intergenerational communication would have been

characterized by a sense of openness, warmth and parental sensitivity. In addition, current

findings emphasize the importance of individual and/or dyadic therapeutic interventions to the

children of trauma survivors, who are rendered vulnerable to intergenerational traumatic

transmission. It is suggested that such therapeutic assistance should be mindful to the covert

and implicit dyadic patterns of communication, both between the parent and the child, and as

enacted in the therapeutic encounter, as these can be seen as prime indicators of the level of

dissociation or integration intrapsychic processes and their relational affects.

49
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57
 ‫תקציר‬

‫רקע ומטרות‪ :‬טראומה מורכבת עלולה לגרום להפרעות בחווייתו הפנימית של ההורה ויכולתו להכיל את ילדו‪,‬‬

‫באופן אשר משפיע באופן נרחב על עולמו הפנימי של הילד (‪Siegel, 2012; Solomon et. al., 2008, Lyons-‬‬

‫‪ .)Ruth, 2003; Auerhahn & Laub, 1998; Herman, 1992‬טראומת הכליאה בשבי‪ ,‬כתצורה ייחודית של חוויה‬

‫טראומתית מורכבת‪ ,‬נמצאה כגורמת להפרעות רגשיות ולפגיעה במידת האינטגרציה הנפשית‪ ,‬אשר מביאים‬

‫לערעור היכולת לוויסות‪-‬עצמי ולקיום קשרים יציבים ומלאים עם אחרים ( ‪Solomon et. al., 2008; Genefke‬‬

‫‪.)et. al., 2000; Hunter-King, 2000; Main and Hesse, 1999; Herman, 1992; Janoff-Bulman, 1992‬‬

‫בהשוואה לטראומות אחרות‪ ,‬ייחודה של טראומת השבי כטראומה מורכבת‪ ,‬מתמשכת ומעשי‪-‬ידי אדם‪ ,‬עלולה‬
‫בתורה להביא לפגיעה נרחבת ביכולתו של ההורה הטראומתי להעניק אמון בזולת‪ ,‬דבר אשר בתורו נמצא‬

‫כמחבל ביכולתו של ההורה להעניק בסיס התקשרותי יציב לילדיו (‪.)Solomon, Dekel, & Mikulincer, 2008‬‬

‫בהתבסס על המשגה פסיכואנליטית‪-‬התייחסותית‪ ,‬המחקר הנוכחי התמקד בהעברה בינדורית של טראומת‬

‫השבי המורכבת‪ ,‬כפי שזו מעוצבת על ידי תהליכים דיסוציאטיביים‪ .‬על פי המשגה זו‪ ,‬דיסוציאציה מובנת בתור‬
‫תהליך הגנתי מרכזי ומכריע מפני טראומה‪ ,‬אשר בא לידי ביטוי באופנויות התקשרות שבין ניצולי טראומה‬

‫וילדיהם (‪ .)Stolorow, 2007; Bromberg, 2004, 1998; Wiseman & Barber, 2008, 2006‬דיסוציאציה‬

‫מומשגת בו‪-‬בעת כתהליך פנים נפשי ואינטרסובייקטיבי‪ ,‬ומוגדרת בתור הפרעה בדיאלוג ובאינטגרציה בין מצבי‪-‬‬

‫עצמי (‪ .)Stern, 2004; Bromberg, 1998; Davies, 1996‬בניסיון להרחיק את הכאב‪ ,‬הזיכרונות והרגשות‬

‫הבלתי‪-‬נסבלים שהתעוררו נוכח הטראומה ולשמר תחושת רציפות עצמית‪ ,‬המנגנון הדיסוציאטיבי חוסם דיאלוג‬

‫וקונפליקט פנימי בין מצבי‪-‬עצמי‪ ,‬בין רגשות‪ ,‬זיכרונות וייצוגים פנימיים של הטראומה ( ‪Bromberg 2004,‬‬

‫‪.)1998, 1994‬‬

‫בהקשר הייחודי של הורות‪ ,‬תהליכים דיסוציאטיביים פנימיים וגילומם בפועל ביחסים אינטרסובייקטיבים‪,‬‬

‫מחבלים ביכולתו של ההורה להיות מכוונן‪ ,‬מכיל ונגיש רגשית לצרכיו הרגשיים של הילד ( ;‪Ogden, 2004, 2003‬‬

‫‪ .)Davies, 1997, 1996‬חלק ניכר מההשפעות הבינדוריות של הטראומה מתרחש למעשה דרך דפוסי תקשורת‬

‫עדינים ואף בלתי‪-‬מודעים‪ ,‬אשר לא מאפשרים לילד "לעכל" באופן רפלקטיבי ובהיר את חווית העבר‬
‫הטראומתית של ההורה ובכך מביאים לפגיעה ביכולתו ליצור סיפור קוהרנטי ואינטגרטיבי הן על עצמו והן על‬

‫א‬
‫הקשר הורה‪-‬ילד בו הוא מתפתח (‪ .)Lyons-Ruth, 2003, 2002; Klein-Parker 1988; Lichtman, 1984‬המחקר‬

‫הנוכחי ביקש להרחיב את ההבנה על אופנויות התקשורת אלו‪ ,‬המערבות העברה בינדורית דיסוציאטיבית‪ ,‬כפי‬
‫שהיא באה לידי ביטוי בהקשר של ילדים‪-‬בוגרים לאבות אשר היו מוחזקים בשבי במהלך שירותם בצבא‬
‫בישראל‪.‬‬
‫שיטה‪ :‬באמצעות ניתוח הוליסטי‪-‬תוכני איכותני של סיפוריהם של ‪ 41‬ילדים‪-‬בוגרים של אבות אשר נכלאו בשבי‬
‫במהלך שירותם הצבאי בישראל‪ ,‬המחקר בחן דפוסים של תקשורת בינדורית אודות הטראומה‪ .‬הניתוח נעשה‬
‫ביחס לתוכן המדובר ולתוכן הלא‪-‬מדובר‪ ,‬כפי שבאו לידי ביטוי הן בסיפורים של המרואיינים על עצמם ועל‬
‫הקשר עם אביהם ("הטקסט")‪ ,‬והן דרך האינטראקציה של המרואיין עם המראיין במהלך הראיון‪ ,‬כרגע המשלב‬
‫("ההקשר‬ ‫ומגולמת‪-‬בפעולה‬ ‫בלתי‪-‬מודעת‬ ‫בחלקה‬ ‫מתמשכת‪,‬‬ ‫אינטרסובייקטיבית‬ ‫תקשורת‬ ‫בתוכו‬
‫האינטרסובייקטיבי")‪.‬‬
‫תוצאות‪ :‬נמצאו שלושה דפוסי תקשורת בינדורית אשר מתקיימת בהשפעת תהליכים דיסוציאטיביים‪" :‬פיצוי‬

‫עודף"; דפוס תקשורת שבו הטראומה מקבלת ביטוי בתקשורת הבינדורית כדימוי של גבורה וחוזק בלבד‪,‬‬

‫ומדוברת רק באירועים פומביים‪ ,‬דבר אשר מוביל את הילד לפחד להתקרב לאזורי פגיעות וכאב של האב ושל‬

‫עצמו‪" .‬הרעלה עודפת"; דפוס תקשורת בינדורי שבו הטראומה מדוברת באופן בלתי‪-‬פוסק ואלים‪ ,‬ובו‪-‬בעת‬

‫מתקיים גרעין טראומתי בלתי‪-‬מדובר‪ ,‬מצב אשר מוביל את הילד לתפקד כשבוי של החומרים הטראומתיים‬

‫הרעילים‪" .‬שתיקה עודפת"; דפוס תקשורת שבו הטראומה לא מדוברת באופן גלוי ומתקיים קשר שתיקה בין‬

‫ההורה לילדו אודותיה‪ ,‬דבר אשר לא מאפשר לעכל את התכנים הקשים ולייצר סיפור‪-‬חיים קוהרנטי‬
‫ואינטרגטיבי‪ ,‬כמו גם מחבל ביכולתו של הילד לייצר חוויה פנימית יציבה ולקיים קשר קרוב עם אביו‪.‬‬
‫מסקנות‪ :‬תוצאות המחקר מתקפות ומרחיבות ממצאים רלוונטיים קודמים שעסקו בדפוסי תקשורת בינדורית‬
‫טראומתית‪ ,‬כפי שנמצאו בקרב אוכלוסיות אחרות כגון משפחות של ניצולי שואה‪ .‬בנוסף‪ ,‬ביחס למנגנונים של‬
‫העברה בינדורית של טראומת השבי בישראל‪ ,‬המחקר אפשר הרחבה משמעותית של הידע הקיים‪ ,‬בשל‬
‫ההתמקדות בדפוסי תקשורת בינדוריים‪ ,‬אשר קודם לכן לא נחקרו כלל‪ .‬הדיון המסכם של המחקר הנוכחי‬
‫אפשר בחינה מעמיקה של חומרי המחקר‪ ,‬דרך הסתכלות מבוססת‪-‬הקשר חברתי‪-‬תרבותי‪ ,‬כמו גם המשגה‬
‫פסיכואנליטית של הממצאים‪.‬‬

‫מילות מפתח‪ :‬טראומה מורכבת‪ ,‬העברה בינדורית‪ ,‬דיסוציאציה‪ ,‬דפוסי תקשורת‬

‫ב‬
‫עבודה זו נעשתה בהדרכתה של פרופ' רבקה תובל‪-‬משיח מהמחלקה לפסיכולוגיה‬

‫באוניברסיטת בר‪-‬אילן‪.‬‬
 ‫אוניברסיטת בר אילן‬

‫הדים מן השבי‪:‬‬
‫נקודת מבט התייחסותית על דפוסי תקשורת בינדורית – המקרה של ילדים‪-‬בוגרים של‬
‫אבות ישראלים אשר נכלאו בשבי במהלך שירותם הצבאי‬

‫כנרת שפירא‬

‫עבודה זו מוגשת כחלק מהדרישות לשם קבלת תואר מוסמך‬

‫במחלקה לפסיכולוגיה של אוניברסיטת בר‪-‬אילן‬

‫תשע"ו‬ ‫רמת גן‬

 ‫אוניברסיטת בר אילן‬

‫הדים מן השבי‪:‬‬
‫נקודת מבט התייחסותית על דפוסי תקשורת בינדורית – המקרה של ילדים‪-‬בוגרים של‬
‫אבות ישראלים אשר נכלאו בשבי במהלך שירותם הצבאי‬

‫כנרת שפירא‬

‫עבודה זו מוגשת כחלק מהדרישות לשם קבלת תואר מוסמך‬

‫במחלקה לפסיכולוגיה של אוניברסיטת בר‪-‬אילן‬

‫תשע"ו‬ ‫רמת גן‬