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Dan Perlitz opens his paper by placing mutual “imbeddedness” in its philogenetic, evolutionary, intergenerational context. He defines the term as “the starting point for all human interaction, a core, interpersonal process that rests on mental and physiologic functions such as the occupying of each other’s mirror neurons (Cattaneo and Rizzolatti, 2009; Rizzolatti & raighero, 2004), relationally induced somatic changes in each other (e.g. G.I., hormonal, cardiac), relationally changing each others’ brain structures (Schore, 2002), the effect of pheromones, and more” (p. 4). Dan emphasizes the importance of this “vertical axis” of our being, in addition to the more immediate cultural and social context of our contemporaneous environment and the relationships within which we live. Intergenerational transmission is thus viewed here from a wide temporal perspective that includes events which occurred before we were born, our post-natal experiences, extending into the future and the ways in which our descendants will be impacted by us and will be imbedded within the continuous chain of generations.
Dan’s discussion of intergenerational transmission of trauma begins with a discussion of his own imbeddedness and his lived experiences as the child of survivors of the Holocaust, bearing the name of a relative murdered by the Nazis. In doing so, Dan participates in the welcome shift toward a more conscious recognition of our personal imbeddedness, as therapists and authors of theoretical conceptualizations, within our particular historical and interpersonal contexts (Kirmayer, 2012). Such awareness and transparency are particularly important with regards to the debate about intergenerational transmission in families of Holocaust survivors, which has not been strictly due to scholarly arguments (Felsen, 2017; Gerson, 2019; Prince, 2015). The dispute about intergenerational transmission in Holocaust families often reflected heated personal emotional attitudes. Some survivors (som