The authors of the article argue for the need to rethink and reinterpret historical trauma as there is a significant difference in how people experience, approach, and transmit the instances of trauma. The conceptual intervention applied in the article relates to the person-centered ethnographic research intended to highlight the contextualization of historical trauma from the perspective of an American Indian family. Notably, the article considers the framing of the traumatic past into an ethic functioning in the transmission of strategies of resilience, family identity, as well as a framework for narrative emplotment (Denham, 2008). Trauma as a social construct has always been debated, and the article also resists it as an intervention, with different ambiguous definitions spread across disciplines. The health logics being critiqued is that there is no wounding or dysphoric reaction to trauma. Therefore, the article makes an effort to provide a comprehensive framework for recognizing traumatic events and interpreting them within a specific sociocultural and ethnic meaning. Historical trauma is the concept that the authors of the article critique. For example, they establish a difference between historical trauma and historical trauma response.
Across different sociocultural groups, there is a difference in the levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal behavior and ideation, anger, substance abuse, guilt behaviors, victim identity, and others. The problem of distress among Indigenous communities has been reframed through the understanding of how trauma is transmitted through generations. It is notable to question further the extent to which historical trauma construction of historical trauma as a diagnosis is being used (Denham, 2008). The manifestations and reactions to historical trauma, which can differ depending on the expressions of resistance and resilience. Future discussions and definitions of historical trauma should take into account the presence and influence of historical trauma. It is important, therefore, to increase the critical exploration and challenge of the historical trauma complex that considers the potential for supporting culturally appropriate responses to such trauma.
Reference
Denham, A. R. (2008). Rethinking historical trauma: Narratives of resilience. Transcultural Psychiatry, 45(3), 391-414.