TPC-Journal-V3-Issue3

125 The Professional Counselor \Volume 3, Issue 3 Other studies have found that adult children of Holocaust survivors have a greater lifespan occurrence of PTSD, as well as other mood and anxiety disorders, than demographically comparable individuals who reported a similar exposure to trauma (Neigh et al., 2009; Yehuda et al., 1998). Further, children of trauma-exposed Holocaust survivors who did not develop PTSD were at an increased risk of manifesting other mental health disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety, PTSD) when compared to individuals whose parents were not exposed to trauma (Yehuda, Halligan, & Bierer, 2001). Additionally, researchers have looked at the impact of maternal trauma on the unborn child. Nine-month-old infants born to mothers who were diagnosed with PTSD as a result of trauma-exposure related to the September 11, 2001 attacks had lower cortisol levels than infants born to unexposed mothers (Neigh et al., 2009; Yehuda et al., 2005). The results were more significant with infants whose mothers were in their third trimester when the attacks occurred. Based upon the above cited research, it can be surmised that parents’ exposure to trauma does form a passageway to subsequent generations that results in an increased risk of negative mental health symptoms. In fact, the latest version of the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM-5 ) includes a stressor criterion for adults, adolescents, and children older than six years related to learning that a close relative or close friend was exposed to trauma. Additionally, the DSM-5 added a PTSD diagnosis for a child six years or younger. One of the triggering events is a child learning that a traumatic event has occurred to a parent or caregiving figure (APA, 2013). Implications for Professional Counselors The results of this analysis of historical trauma assist in removing some of the ambiguity regarding this theory. Specifically, a link between neurological functioning and trauma and cross-generational trauma transmission were conceptualized and applied to the theory of historical trauma. This comprehensive examination provides professional counselors with an increased understanding of how traumas that occurred within the Native American population generations ago continue to impact clients today. This information is critical to enhance clinicians’ clinical skills when working with Native American clients. Having an understanding of historical trauma will assist professional counselors in being more responsive to the unique needs of members of this population and incorporating historical trauma in their clinical work. Dionne, Davis, Sheeber, and Madrigal (2009) provide that integrating mainstream mental health intervention in Native American individuals should involve two phases: (a) motivational phase (i.e., historical context around current difficulties in Native American communities is discussed); and (b) intervention phase (i.e., utilizing mainstream evidence-based interventions). Not only do clinicians and interventions need to be culturally competent, but conventional counseling theories need to be adjusted to be culturally appropriate (Wendt & Gone, 2012). Thus, traditional counseling theories should be integrated with elements of historical trauma and the Native American holistic view of the person. First, professional counselors should reframe historical loss symptoms in terms of collective responses that are employed to assist clients in alleviating symptoms (Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998). Thus, the psychological, social-environmental, and physiological concerns that plague many Native people are signs and symptoms of a communal reaction to generations of persecution, discrimination, and oppression. Specifically, historical trauma differs from the diagnosis of PTSD in that many of the traumas that occurred were systemic in nature (e.g., massacres, Trail of Tears, mass removal of children), which led to collective subjugated grief. Brave Heart and DeBruyn (1998) in their pioneering writings on historical trauma proposed that the initial disenfranchised grief of the Native American people resulted in historical unresolved grief. Therefore, a second intervention is the need for clinicians to validate the existence of not only the initial historical losses