You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The title of this book is intriguing. In considering the meaning of the burden of heritage, I initially thought about my own burden in writing this review. What does it mean that I, a therapist of colour, have been asked to write it? Is it that I am seen more as a black therapist than a therapist? If so, what does this mean? Is this the burden of my heritage? The author, Aileen Alleyne, has written previously about black/white dynamics, shame and identity wounding, and difference and diversity in the workplace. In this, her first book, she speaks of the way in which the beneficiaries of slavery have preferred not to concern themselves with the crimes of their ancestors, which makes me wonder whether a white therapist may find writing this review too much to bear as a consequence of their own burden of heritage.
Alleyne describes the difference between transgenerational trauma, in which an oppressive history is passed on to future generations, and intergenerational trauma, which is how transgenerational trauma can psychically take hold of family life. She draws on Professor Stephen Frosh's work on the psychological aftermath of the Holocaust on Jewish communities, and coins the term “racial hauntings” to address the notable lack of writing about the psychological effects of slavery within black communities.