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The Armenian Genocide and Its Intergenerational Effects

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An International Perspective on Disasters and Children's Mental Health

Part of the book series: Integrating Psychiatry and Primary Care ((IPPC))

Abstract

This chapter explores the impact of the 1915 Armenian Genocide on children’s mental health. Following the genocide, many adult and child survivors repressed their memories and tried to bury their trauma, focusing instead on self-preservation to help ensure the survival of future generations. This is important because the children and grandchildren of survivors may experience secondary trauma through communication within the family system. Intergenerational transmission of trauma has affected the offspring of these survivors and carries several mental health effects related to their parents’ and grandparents’ histories. All the survivors experienced severe, tangible loss, but even further, they experienced a form of ambiguous loss born out of the denial of this loss by the Turkish government. Unfortunately, ambiguous loss can be hard to move on from. Armenians from Armenia, as well as those from the diaspora, share a collective memory that continues to impact their approach to the world. This transmission of trauma, with linkages to more recent events in Armenia that include the 1988 earthquake and the 1988 war with Azerbaijan, is reviewed using research literature and case studies. Historical trauma has a “compounding effect” that causes further stress and anxiety for children currently experiencing the trauma of war. Addressing these children’s emotional needs is, thus, an important goal, and both family responses and professionally-implemented therapies have a positive role to play in achieving it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. “Intra” Mental Health Center, Yerevan State Medical University, Yerevan, Armenia

    Khachatur Gasparyan

  2. Pepperdine University Counseling Center in Malibu, Malibu, CA, USA

    John Saroyan

Authors
  1. Khachatur Gasparyan
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  2. John Saroyan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Christina W. Hoven

  2. New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Lawrence V. Amsel

  3. Tel Aviv University School of Medicine, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Sam Tyano

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Gasparyan, K., Saroyan, J. (2019). The Armenian Genocide and Its Intergenerational Effects. In: Hoven, C., Amsel, L., Tyano, S. (eds) An International Perspective on Disasters and Children's Mental Health. Integrating Psychiatry and Primary Care. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15872-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15872-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15872-9

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