Transgenerational Trauma: A Contemporary Introduction

In this book, Jill Salberg and Sue Grand offer an overview of the psychoanalytic work on transgenerational trauma, rooting their perspective in attachment theory, and the social-ethical turn of Relational psychoanalysis.

Transgenerational Trauma: A Contemporary Introduction is a cutting-edge study of trauma transmission across generations. Salberg and Grand consider how our forebears' trauma can leave a scar on our lives, our bodies, and on our world. They posit that, too often, we re-cycle the social violence that we were subjected to. Their unique approach embraces diverse psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories, as they look at attachment, legacies of violence, and the role of witnessing in healing. Clinical and personal stories are interwoven with theory to elucidate the socio-historical positions that we inherit and live out. Social justice concerns are addressed throughout, in a mission to heal both individual and collective wounds.

Transgenerational Trauma: A Contemporary Introduction offers a nuanced and comprehensive approach to this vital topic, and will be of interest to psychoanalysts, psychologists and other mental health professionals, as well as students and scholars of trauma studies, race and gender studies, sociology, conflict resolution, and others.

Jill Salberg is Faculty at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. She is the editor of Psychoanalytic Credos: Professional Journeys of Psychoanalysts (2022) and Good Enough Endings (2010).

Sue Grand is Faculty at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. She is the author of The Hero in the Mirror: From Fear to Fortitude (2009) and The Reproduction of Evil (2002). She has co-edited two books with Lewis Aron and Joyce A. Slochower: Decentering Relational Theory: A Comparative Critique and De-Idealizing Relational Theory: A Critique From Within (both 2018).

Jointly they are the editors of Wounds of History: Repair and Resilience in the Trans-Generational Transmission of Trauma (2017) and Transgenerational Trauma and the Other: Dialogues across History and Difference (2017), both won the Gradiva award in 2018.