Exploring communication of traumatic experiences from Khmer Rouge genocide survivors to their offspring: In-depth interviews with both generations

Silencing or silent transmission? An exploratory study on trauma communication in Kurdish refugee families

Trauma communication in refugee families is increasingly recognized as an important relational dynamic influencing psychosocial well-being, yet studies exploring interactional dynamics and meaning making at play in intra-family trauma communication remain scarce. This article reports on a qualitative study with Kurdish refugee families including parents (N = 10) and children (N = 17) resettled in Belgium, aiming to explore practices on trauma communication within refugee family relationships. In a multiple-phased qualitative design, semi-structured family interviews and participant observation administered in the homes of the participant families are followed by parental interviews involving a tape-assisted recall procedure to investigate observed intergenerational trauma communication and parent-child interactions. Data analysis shows parents and children seldom explicitly talked about the families' lived experiences of trauma. This silence was especially related to parental wishes to avoid their children's future involvement in violence. However, findings also indicate how the intra-family transmission of memories of collective violence occurs in many subtle ways. Four modes of indirect trauma communication could be distinguished: (1) focusing on the repetition of violence in the present; (2) transmission of the collective trauma history; (3) family storytelling; and (4) interaction with meaningful objects of the past. These findings shed light onto the interwoven nature of personal-familial and collective trauma and loss and illuminate the meanings of silence and disclosure in the context of the Kurdish diaspora. In the final section, we discuss our findings and outline its clinical implications for family therapeutic practices in refugee trauma care.

"They tell us little and we end up being confused": Parent-child communication on familial experiences of genocide and its aftermath in Rwanda

In the current study we explore how Rwandan youth negotiate, within the family setting, a myriad of social and interpersonal dilemmas around silence and disclosure of genocide-related experiences of their parents. The study draws primarily on individual interviews and focus group discussions with 20 children of genocide survivor and perpetrator parents in the western and eastern provinces of Rwanda. Using the conceptual framework of social navigation which theorizes agency in a fluid, often unpredictable, and constantly moving social environment, we focus specifically on the difficult and often contradictory complex of factors that drive the communication strategies and tactics of the children as they seek information to understand the past of their parents. This includes the children's urge to get to know the specific stories of their family but fearing the emotional disruption it may cause in the parent-child relationship; the push-pull dynamics of the parents wanting to disclose some experiences but admonishing silence on others; and the often ambiguous divergences between the public and private discourses. Our findings show that the steadiest navigational point guiding communication choices, made by both parents and their offspring, was a desire to contribute to a peaceful social environment, and to reduce the risk of future violence. We present emerging evidence suggesting that community-based sociotherapy, a program that includes healing the social space and not only intrapsychic wounds, may contribute to a steadier navigation of the tricky communication issues, enhancing psychosocial wellbeing.