AAARGH
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 09:50:26 CST
Reply-To: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust
Sender: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust
From: "C. Samson Munn, M.D." <[email protected]> Subject: Psychological "problems"?
To: Multiple recipients of list H-HOLOCAUST
Dear all,
A recent entry opined, "It's been well documented that the children of Holocaust survivors [(1)] have a greater incidence of psychological problems than the general population."
With respect, I would disagree.
I would agree that there have been many articles and some books published saying that there are more psychological "problems" in children of survivors*, but I would not at all say that that point has been well-documented. Rather, I would say that much poor work has been published; poor in terms of scientific rigor, as has been described in this list previously and elsewhere. In addition, there is some literature debunking most of the psychology literature of the '60s-80's that claimed so.
I caution all (including myself) to be careful and rigorous in reading such work.
Why are differences, when they exist, so quickly thought of as "problems"? Could it be because most who have written in this area have written qualitative stuff, not quantitative stuff? And, often about their own patients or interviewees? And, unscientifically extrapolated to children of survivors generally?
Some have interpreted the differences in children of survivors that do happen to be somewhat general (as opposed to most presumed (without proper measurement) to be widespread) rather as psychological and/or sociological quite well without invoking "problems" as an inherent part of the observation (for ANY of the observations). In addition, there is no documentation of which I know of increased incidences of depression, divorce, alcoholism, poorer school or professional achievment, etc., ETC., in children of survivors (at least in America, England, and several other countries), that one might have expected to be manifestations of such "problems".
One area that sociologists and/or psychologists might consider exploring more, despite how iconoclastic, is what benefits/advantages were experienced in children of survivors; perhaps there are stengths in psychological make-up derived from growing up in homes that MAY have had greater exposures to foreign languages, attention to the plights of the oppressed and/or minorities, emphasis upon trust, appreciation of the simple and basic aspects of life and even life itself, etc.
* Finally, the original, quoted comment made reference to the comparison to the general population. I suppose that that might be interesting to some. Other comparisons that might---might---be of more interest or relevance to others is to Jews who are not the children of direct Holocaust victims (including all of: camp survivors, resistance fighters/partisans, hidden children, essentially forced refugees of the '30s, etc.), or to the children of non Jews who are children of immigrant victims, etc.
(Just one person's thoughts.)
Samson
Note
[(1)] En fait, il découle du reste du texte que l'auteur a en vue non pas les "enfants de survivants" mais les enfants survivants à des parents morts pendant la seconde guerre mondiale. Nous n'en voulons pour preuve que cette phrase un peu plus loin dans le texte. retour au texte
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