John Taylor

Professor Wertz-Orbaugh
Uwrt 1102-005
10/14/15
WW5: Resources
Trauma Syndrome Traverses Generations
B. Bower
Science News
Vol. 149, No. 20 (May 18, 1996), p. 310
The article I found comes off JSTOR, and is titled Trauma Syndrome Traverses
Generations by B. Bower. It is about Holocaust survivors and their struggle with PTSD. In the
article Bower talks about how a high number of survivors tend to pass the PTSD on to their kids,
and also compared a survivors traumatic experience to a traumatic experience of their child.
Based on the surveys and studies Bower conducted and recorded in the article, he shows a direct
correlation between having PTSD and your children also having it.
I never realized that something like PTSD could be basically hereditary, but after reading
Bowers article I see where it could happen. Just the thought of my traumatic events effecting my
unborn kids is something that I never deemed possible. Another thing I learned, and caught me
off guard is when Bower conducted the study in which she proved traumatic events can
potentially last for not one, but many generations after the event. The way he showed that is
because children tested with PTSD actually cited thoughts and images of Holocaust events,

stemming from their parents trauma. Children of Holocaust survivors often said that images of
their parents traumas intruded into their mental lives.
This article goes great with my actual topic because I wondered how surviving could
affect someones personal life, and what a larger role in ones personal life than affecting their
kids. With this article, it could potentially give me another paragraph on my paper, because of the
similarity to my question. Now with knowing that this affects people as well as their kids, it open
up the door for me to essentially expand my topic of inquiry. If I had the chance to talk with
Bower, I think we would have a very interesting chat. One of the very first questions I would ask
him is how exactly did he become interested in this topic. I would ask that because I would like
to know if we kind of had the same thought process on the topic. That meaning if he also
wondered how a traumatic even would affect a persons life. It would be neat to know if we both
started out on the same though process because then I could see just how much deeper that
simple thought could go. Another question I would as is why he chose to focus mainly on PTSD
instead of going into other mental health diseases and disorders. I feel it he focused on other
disorders, it would be much more helpful to others, and it would open more eyes about other
victims than just PTSD victims. The third and final question I would ask is how long did it take
him to complete the surveys, and also how did he choose the Holocaust survivors and how he
found them. It seems that completing surveys like the ones Bower did would be very time
consuming. I would like to know if he just chose random Holocaust survivors or did he have a
certain criteria, and if he did how did he find them and get their background information. I find it
hard to believe he just walked around asking people if they were survivors and asking them if
they suffered from PTSD. There had to be a way about getting all of the info required for the
surveys, and I would love to know what it was.