Genealogy, Psychology and Therapy: Uncovering Trauma

153 Pages·2022·10.138 MB·English

by  Paula Nicolson

‘A must-read for genealogists asking, “Who Do I Think You Were?”. Psychologist
Paula Nicolson shows us the power of family history, especially when we combine it
with psychology to understand the intergenerational effect of trauma. Every family
has members traumatized by war, violence, migration, poverty, loss, or addiction. Do
you know that intergenerational trauma unwittingly causes emotional issues,
disruption, and dysfunction within families and incurs personal trauma? If you
want to recognize and understand the effect of traumatic events on your ancestors,
yourself and living family, this book is for you’.
Helen Parker-Drabble is a former therapist, a family historian and author
of ‘Who Do I Think You Were?®’ A Victorian’s Inheritance
‘I enjoyed reading this book very much! It’s both intriguing and compelling but
more so it is informative – not only about Paula Nicolson’s own family history. Its
insights apply to most of us. This book directs us towards an empathic under-
standing of our family’s past accompanied by a sense of healing and forgiveness’.
Dr. Emanuela Barasch Rubinstein, author of Delivery and other novels
‘This book opens a whole new perspective on understanding trauma. Using an
exploration of her own and others’ genealogy Nicolson convincingly explains
how trauma is intergenerational. Like a detective story, she investigates,
contextualises and analyses the “knowledge” we have about our family,
forensically uncovering the pathways and the place trauma has had in shaping
our identities and place. Family systems are described as porous, leaching and
determining the historical material that flows through our familial networks and
across time. Using the frameworks of Freud, Klein, Erikson, Bion and Bowlby,
Nicolson explains the psychological mechanisms of how the trauma of loss,
migration, kinship, persecution and ill-health flows through and influences the
psychology of future generations. It is impossible to read this book and not engage
in your own project of “self in history”, examining the folklore of your own
family in new ways and sparking a new curiosity. Professionally, I now see “taking
a family history” in a totally new light’.
Professor Jan Burns, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, Canterbury
Christ Church University

GENEALOGY, PSYCHOLOGY
AND THERAPY
Fully revised and updated, Genealogy, Psychology and Therapy highlights the
importance of genealogy in the development of identity and the therapeutic
potential of family history in cultivating wellbeing.
The popularity of amateur genealogy and family history has soared in recent times.
We will never know any of the people we discover from our histories in person, but for
several reasons, we recognize that their lives shaped ours. Key approaches to identity and
relationships lend clues to our own lives but also to what psychosocial factors run across
generations. Attachment and abandonment, trusting, being let down, becoming
independent, migration, health and money, all resonate with the psychological
experiences that define the outlooks, personalities and the ways that those who came
before us related to others. This new edition builds on the original book, Genealogy,
Psychology and Identity, by highlighting the work of Erik Erikson along with studies of
the quality of attachment, historical social conditions especially war, forced migration,
health inequalities and financial uncertainty, to enable a more detailed understanding of
trauma and its long shadow, and to focus on how genealogy informs our identities and
emotional health status, exploring the transmission of trauma across generations. The
intergenerational transmission of trauma is examined using analysis of real-life family
examples, alongside an assessment of a narrative therapy approach to healing. The book
expands on how psychological practices together with genealogical evidence may
impart resilience and emotional repair and develops the discussion of the psychological
methods by which we interconnect in a reflective way with material from archival
databases, family stories and photographs and other sources including DNA.
Showing how people can connect with archival material, using documents and
texts to expand their knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial
experiences of their ancestors, this book will be of interest to those researching
their own family tree, genealogists and counsellors, as well as students and
researchers in social psychology and social history.
Paula Nicolson retired from her post as professor and former department head at
Royal Holloway, the University of London in 2011. She is a Fellow and
Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of
Social Sciences and the author of many academic papers, press articles and books.
She now divides her time between writing academic books, novels and plays.

GENEALOGY,
PSYCHOLOGY AND
THERAPY
Uncovering Trauma
Second Edition
Paula Nicolson
Cover image: © Getty Images
Second edition published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Paula Nicolson
The right of Paula Nicolson to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2016
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Nicolson, Paula, author.
Title: Genealogy, psychology and therapy : uncovering trauma / Paula Nicolson.
Other titles: Genealogy, psychology, and identity
Description: 2[nd edition]. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2022. | Includes bibliographical references. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022003743 (print) | LCCN 2022003744 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032119717 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032114125 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003222422 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Identity (Psychology) | Genealogy. |
Genealogy‐‐Psychological aspects. | Families‐‐Psychological aspects.
Classification: LCC BF697 .N53 2022 (print) | LCC BF697 (ebook) |
DDC 155.2‐‐dc23/eng/20220308
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003743
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022003744
ISBN: 978-1-032-11971-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-11412-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-22242-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003222422
Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
To my family, past, present and future

CONTENTS
List of Figures xii
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
Discovering happiness and unhappiness: trickle down from
trauma 2
Why a second edition? 3
What is to follow? 4
1 Formal, Practical and Serendipitous Routes to our Pasts 7
Introduction 7
Why do we care about who we think we are? 8
What happens when you log in for the first time? 9
Conclusion 19
2 My Family Networks and Systems 20
Introduction 20
The family networks and systems 22
Conclusion 25
3 Uncovering Trauma in Family Histories: Psychological
Theories and Practices 26
Introduction 26
What is trauma? 26
Family history, trauma and therapy 27