Unveiling Hidden Secrets: Marty Ross-Dolen’s Quest to Unlock a Daughter’s Haunting Truths
LL: You are a retired child/adolescent psychiatrist, and given the subject matter, I find that very fascinating. Not just that you chose that career, but the whole concept of inherited trauma. That really fascinates me. This is a two-part question. One, can you tell us a bit more about intergenerational trauma, and also, how you acquired your name? How it’s a bit like you were destined to tell this story?
MRD: There is a lot of interest in the topic of intergenerational trauma, and some research studies suggest that there may be true changes at the genetic level that lead to the passing down of the effects of trauma from one generation to another. For me, I see the inheritance of trauma as being more the result of environmental conditions, or perhaps from subconscious parenting choices, where the absence of an understanding of the best way to address grief in children might be perpetuated from one generation to another. In my case, silence and soldiering on were my mother’s family’s ways of handling their devastating losses, and in silence is how I was raised as well.
