Answer To: Assessment 3: Essay Assessment type Essay Word limit/length 2500 words Weighting 50% of total grade...
Rimsha answered on Jun 02 2021
Running Head: ASSESSMENT 3: ESSAY 1
ASSESSMENT 3: ESSAY 12
IMPACT OF INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF AUSTRALIA
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Transmission of Trauma Intergenerationally 3
Effects of Intergenerational Trauma across the Lifespan 7
Therapeutic Approaches to Facilitate Healing and Recovery of Individual and Communities 9
Conclusion 10
References 11
Introduction
Indigenous population of Australia is also known as people belonging to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. For many generations, Indigenous people suffered many hardships for many generations due to colonization, famine and diseases due to European Invasion. Apart from this, their children were taken away and stripped off from their identity and as an outcome of which they become stolen generation. The trauma faced by first generation keeps on transferring to the future generation through stories. After years of discrimination, racism and identity crisis, this community suffered from many potential issues such as poor education, lack of employment and burdened with diseases, which are eradicated from other parts of the world. As suggested by Reading and Greenwood (2018), there has been very high disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous population of the country in context of the health. The trauma passes through generations become responsible for the poor mental health condition of the Indigenous population. This assignment provides the insight of the intergenerational trauma and its impact on the life of the Indigenous population of the country.
Transmission of Trauma Intergenerationally
Generally, trauma can be defined as the response of the individual towards catastrophic event, which occur in their life, results in leaving the individual in shock and makes it difficult to process the information or deal with situation. As mentioned by Atkinson (2017), intergenerational trauma also known as transgenerational trauma can be defined as trauma, which can be transferred from one generation to another. It has been seen that people belonging to the first generation of the survivors who directly experienced or witnessed the traumatic events passed the information to the future generation. It must be noted that there are many kinds of trauma, which were witnessed by first generation. For example, children of the first generation of survivor are taken away from them and their identity was stripped off. They were told that their parents left them. These children were subjected to physical, emotional and mental abuse.
As states by Wood et al. (2016), when the British invaded the Australia, they settled on the land of the Indigenous population to form the colony. They cited that land does not belong to any individual in the country legally. Thus, they grab the land and drag the Indigenous population away from their land. At the beginning of the colonization, the problems of the Indigenous population further increase. First, this population lost their land and livelihood and later they were confined to the exterior part of the country. Then, evasion of the European country resulted in increases in the European disease.
As noted by Shute (2017), European brings the newer diseases on the land, which reduces the survival of the population. There was heavy loss of life and increased the illness among the population. Colonization led to the segregation, dispossession and subjugation. After colonization, Indigenous population suffered from the prolonged racism. They suffered from interpersonal and institutional racism, which led to the lowering of the socio-economic status of the community due to lack of economic opportunities and land ownership. Indigenous population faced the racism at individual and societal level. The 21st century also failed to bring any vast change due to very high health disparity in between indigenous and non-Indigenous population, they are reluctance towards taking help of modern medication.
As mentioned by Atkinson, Nelson, Brooks, Atkinson and Ryan (2014), in intergenerational trauma, children deal with the post-traumatic state of their parents, which directly or indirectly affect their health. The transmission of the trauma occurs through parenting practices, violence and use of the harmful substance, behavioural issues and mental health issues. Earlier, it has been seen that behaviour was responsible for the transmission of the trauma in the next generation but studies have suggested that epigenetics also play crucial role in transmission of trauma.
As stated by Phipps and Degges‐White (2014), it has been seen that gene expression and cellular activities are influenced, by the external factors such as environment. It has been seen that when parents undergo any traumatic events, there is change in their genetic activities such as suppression of one gene or overexpression of other gene, which ensures their survival. When these people produce their offspring, there is existence of the suppressed genes in these offspring. Thus, trauma can be transferred through epigenetics. Apart from this, children of the trauma victims grown up in the environment like their parents, which resulted in triggering in the genes reformation.
Apart from this, it has been seen that when parents suffered from the disease of the trauma such as depression and anxiety or other diseases like diabetes and hypertension, children often inherited these diseases. As stated by Perroud et al. (2014), trauma often transfers from the mother to the unborn child. It has been seen that trauma of the mother in the form of stress often transferred to the newborn child. It must be noted that intergenerational trauma is mainly transferred from behavioural aspect of the parents. The first...