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In order to make successful interventions that incorporate the use of diet, nutrients, and botanical medicine into trauma therapy, it is essential to understand how stress and trauma affect the HPA axis, the 24-hour cortisol rhythm, and neurobiological and brain development. Such interventions should support neuroendocrine function, restore cortisol rhythm, and enhance neuronal connection and brain phospholipids. This will help to strengthen overall physical and mental resilience and recovery from cultural stress and trauma.
Exposure to chronic stress occurs not only among individuals but also among members of whole groups by virtue of their membership in those groups. Cultural trauma, historical trauma, and intergenerational trauma are concepts used to explain the response to chronic stress among whole groups of people and how this stress is “transferred” across generations.
The root of the terms of historical trauma and intergenerational transmission of trauma derive from observations among cultural groups exposed to prolonged stress. These groups are often suffering from the devastation of war, genocide, and interpersonal violence. Enduring such traumatic events often initiates the transfer of a psycho-bio-behavioral template of stress to offspring and subsequent generations.
Seminal research conducted among survivors of the Nazi Holocaust (Nadler, 1985; Yehuda et al., 1998), the Khmer of Cambodia (Sack, Clarke, & Seeley 1995), American Indians (Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004; Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998) and Aboriginal peoples (Gagne, 1998) of North America and Mexico (Korn & Rÿser, 2006) suggest identifiable patterns of trauma and health dysfunction.
Historical trauma among American Indians refers to the legacy of colonization and genocide (Whitbeck et al., 2004) resulting from European contact in the United States. These effects persist today. The clinical significance of historical trauma and its interaction with a lifetime of traumatic events is unclear and has yet to be definitively elucidated. Recent attention has focused on the presumed role of historical trauma on neurobiological function (Yehuda et al., 2005). Some evidence suggests that these effects may be passed on at the neurobiological developmental strata via the HPA axis system (Gunnar & Donzella, 2002) and in response to intergenerational trauma (Strickland, Walsh, & Cooper, 2006). For example, adult offspring whose parents had survived the Nazi Holocaust and developed PTSD had low cortisol levels (Yehuda et al., 2005).
The intergenerational transmission of trauma is hypothesized to occur during pre-natal (Yehuda et al., 2005) and peri-natal stages of neurobiological development (Schore, 2003). This suggests a theoretical basis for the predisposition to the development of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and vulnerability to substance abuse (Schore, 2003). Infants born to mothers who developed PTSD while pregnant, due to witnessing the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City, had significantly lower cortisol levels (Yehuda et al., 2005). The infants’ lower cortisol levels suggest the effects of HPA axis transmission on the fetus.
Persistent changes in the HPA axis are also seen in individuals struggling with severe depression who experienced sexual abuse during childhood. Findings from several studies suggest that chronic exposure to traumatic experiences reduces hippocampal volume. Hippocampal damage extinguishes the awakening cortisol response without affecting the rest of the cycle (Buchanan, Kern, Allen, Tranel, & Kirschbaum, 2004).
Understanding how stress affects the HPA axis, the 24-hour cortisol rhythm, and neurobiological and brain development is central to making interventions with food, nutritional and botanical medicine. Nutritional and botanical interventions can be used to support HPA and neuroendocrine function, restore cortisol rhythm, enhance neuronal connections, and brain phospholipids to enhance overall physical and mental resilience and recovery.
This post is adapted from my book Rhythms of Recovery: Trauma, Nature, and the Body.
References
Brave Heart, M. Y. H., & DeBruyn, L. M. (1998). The American Indian holocaust: Healing historical unresolved grief.American Indian and Alaskan Native Mental health research: The Journal of the National Center, 8(2), 60–8.
Gagne, M. (1998). The role of dependency and colonialism in generating trauma in First Nations citizens: The James Bay Cree. In Y.Danieli (Ed.), International hand-book of multigenerational legacies of trauma: Group project for holocaust survivors and their children(pp. 355–372). New York: Plenum.
Gunnar, M. R., & Donzella, B. (2002). Social regulation of the cortisol levels in early human Development. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 27(1–2), 199–22.
Korn, L., & Rÿser, R. (2006). Burying the umbilicus: Nutrition trauma, diabetes, and traditional medicine in rural West Mexico. In G. C. Lang (Ed.), Indigenous peoples and diabetes: Community empowerment and wellness (pp. 231–277). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
Nadler, A., Kav-Venaki, S., & Gleitman, B. (1985). Transgenerational effects of the holocaust: Externalization of aggression in second-generation holocaust survivors. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 53(3), 365–369.
Sack, W. H., Clarke, G. N., & Seeley, J. (1995). Posttraumatic stress disorder across two generations of Cambodian refugees. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 34(9), 1160–1166.
Schore, A. (2003). Affect regulation and the repair of the self. New York: Norton.
Strickland, C. J., Walsh, E., & Cooper, M. (2006). Healing fractured families: Parents’ and elders’ perspectives on the impact of colonization and youth suicide prevention in a Pacific Northwest American Indian tribe. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 17(1), 5–12.
Yehuda, R., Engel, S. M., Brand, S. R., Seckl, J., Marcus, S. M., & Berkowitz, G. S.(2005). Transgenerational effects of posttraumatic stress disorder in babies of mothers exposed to the World Trade Center attacks during pregnancy.Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 90(7), 4115–4118.
Whitbeck, L. B., Adams, G. W., Hoyt, D. R., & Chen, X. (2004). Conceptualizing and measuring historical trauma among American Indian people. American Journal of Community Psychology, 33(3–4), 119–130.
