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Links to Mental Health

Reliving traumatic experiences as a collective can lead to a vast range on mental health problems, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and disassociation. With collective traumas including events like natural disasters and even historical traumas like The Holocaust, the psychological impact of these vary based on direct and indirect experience. These traumas can result in psychological conditions to prevail, for example we see how PTSD and Alexithymia was developed by survivors of the earthquakes in L’Aquila, Italy. PTSD symptoms can include re-experiencing your traumatic event, avoidance, and emotional numbing such as alexithymia, and many more emotional and physical symptoms. These symptoms and the condition of PTSD are not limited to the victims themselves, but generations after traumatic events as well, usually up to two generations, , which can be attributed to a combination of epigenetics and collective cultural trauma (see these sections below). The mental health conditions due to collective trauma are not limited to PTSD, with studies showing higher levels of low self esteem in the children of holocaust survivors and higher levels of anxiety and depression in those who have experienced a collective historical trauma, like the Native Americans. Therefore, experiencing a collective trauma directly or indirectly can result in many mental health conditions for the collective.

Neurological Effects

When collective trauma is experienced, there are neurological and neurophysiological impacts on the victims and those affected. With most collective trauma accompanied by PTSD, there are two responses that victims are most likely to adopt: reexperiencing and/or hyperarousal and dissociation. These play a part in dictating what neural pathways the brain will form. PTSD and collective trauma have an impact on limbic function, and impact parts of the brain, like the right amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal, and temporopolar areas, where survivors of collective trauma experience a lower intensity, which has impact on mood in a negative way. As studies from the L’Aquila earthquake survivors show, the lower intensity of limbic regions in the survivors represents a defensive approach when tasked with emotional involvement, suggesting coping strategies in the form of distancing and disassociation, and a dysfunctional emotional regulating system.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics is the influence your environment and behaviours have on how your genes work, and with more studies exploring how the epigenome is changed: collective trauma can also be considered. The epigenome is shaped by both genetic variation and environmental experiences, and we see how survivors of collective trauma can alter their epigenome. Exposure to trauma and stressors can alter gene regulation and expression leading t altered patterns of biology and health. Studies show that both mental and physical health outcomes suffer due to epigenetic reasons because of collective trauma. Studies show that through intrauterine signalling, the experience of negative maternal mood or stress during pregnancy can manifest in alterations in epigenetic patterns of offspring, with potential long-term effects on health outcomes, which can continue for generations to come Further links of parental care and breastfeeding composition also indicate to changes in genetic makeup in offspring, for example if the mother experiences higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, this will be experienced also by the offspring either in utero or through breastfeeding.

Collective Cultural Trauma

Cultural trauma is a form of collective trauma that is seen on a societal and macro-level. With collective trauma being experienced communally- psychological, and mental health consequences of cultural trauma can be explored from individual and community-level perspectives, factoring in family dynamics and geopolitical factors that can amplify the trauma experienced. The Holocaust provides an example of how survivors and their children experienced impaired functioning and poor adjustment to their environments. Studies around refugees and immigrants also indicate how cultural trauma as a collective has vast negative mental health affects and how that is transmitted throughout communities and then generations through epigenetic transmission, but also through parental care that is dictated by family dynamics set by communities. An example of this can be witnessed through Sri Lanka, where a war and tsunami caused collective trauma to be experienced. On multiple levels, Sri Lankans who were affected by the war and tsunami saw changed in the dynamics of family relations, a lack of trust between community members and child rearing changed as well. These changed the cultural norms in Sri Lankan society, and created a negative environment where communities tended to be more dependent, passive, silent, without leadership, mistrustful, and suspicious. As a collectivist culture, this shared trauma changed the dynamic of communities in a significant way, and changed the cultural identities of many Sri Lankans. This highlights how collective trauma has an impact on cultural identity on a large scale