“About false Jews”: Transgenerational posttraumatic identity confusions in Germany
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Abstract
In times of rising group-focused enmity and toxic polarizations between conflicted groups worldwide, a differentiated debate about the transgenerational complexities of German and Jewish posttraumatic entanglements of identity is needed. This article focuses on one specific and limited clinical phenomenon: the “adoption” by a few people in Germany of a Jewish identity that is not present in their own biography. An introduction to the phenomenon from clinical practice is followed by a brief historical and social contextualization, as well as theoretical models of explanation for the adoption of a potentially oppressed minority status. With reference to theories on social trauma and its transgenerational transmission to both victims and perpetrators, the psychoanalytic examination of a single case is used to develop the thesis that posttraumatic Jewish identity confusion and constructions are to be understood not only as an individual variant of “false-self,” but also as a form of transgenerational repercussion of the social trauma of the Shoah.
Topics
Trauma Main Topic: Identity and Community Jewish Identity Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations Attitudes to Jews National Identity Psychotherapy / Psychoanalysis
Genre
Geographic Coverage
Volume/Issue
33(3)
Page Number / Article Number
184-192
DOI
Link
Link to article (paywalled), “About false Jews”: Transgenerational posttraumatic identity confusions in Germany
Bibliographic Information
“About false Jews”: Transgenerational posttraumatic identity confusions in Germany. 2024: 184-192. https://archive.jpr.org.uk/10.1080/0803706X.2024.2303065
