Can the past keep life pleasant even for old-old trauma survivors?

Abstract

Holocaust survivors demonstrated a greater difficulty to compensate for age-related losses while the comparison groups showed a greater optimization of satisfaction through narrative means in old-old age.

Resilience and Vulnerability Among Aging Holocaust Survivors and Their Families: An Intergenerational Overview

“…Hence, the familial narrative should comprehensively include the murdered family members, the surviving family members, and the family members who were born and raised after the Holocaust. This extensive story would obviously have a traumatic focus but should also include positive memories and hoped-for outcomes (Lomranz, 2005;Shrira & Shmotkin, 2008). An intergenerational framework may provide essential insights into the intricate balance between resilience and vulnerability in the long-term aftereffects of massive trauma.…”

“…Furthermore, when telling their life stories, survivors who are emotionally flat in relation to the Holocaust period while exhibiting high emotional intensity in relation to other periods of their life report greater levels of happiness than survivors who exhibit the reverse pattern of emotional attitudes (Cohen & Shmotkin, 2007). Hence, the influence of the trauma is well contained in the negative parts of the life story and do not necessarily seep into the positive parts (Shmotkin, Berkovich, & Cohen, 2006;Shrira & Shmotkin, 2008). Plausibly, the successful isolation of traumatic memories from the survivors' daily lives is facilitated by their ability to tolerate the contradiction between the traumatic world and the world thereafter.…”

Happiness and Suffering in the Life Story: An Inquiry into Conflicting Expectations Concerning the Association of Perceived Past with Present Subjective Well-Being in Old Age

“…Studies show that while positive and negative anchor periods naturally induce congruent emotions (e.g., happiness in positive periods, suffering in negative periods), they also induce incongruent emotions (e.g., happiness in negative periods, suffering in positive periods) in order to tackle the complexity of life situations and to regulate unbalanced perceptions of well-being versus adversity (Shmotkin et al 2006;Shrira and Shmotkin 2008). Thus, people often feel happy when savoring peak moments in life (e.g., a birth of a child) or feel the suffering related to adversities (e.g., a death of a spouse).…”

“…Our model proposes that major autobiographical memories may be captured by the concept of anchor periods, defined as subjectively delimited fragments of time that are outstandingly meaningful in one's life (i.e., ''the happiest period,'' ''the most miserable period''). Representing paramount experiences in life from one's retrospective viewpoint, anchor periods serve as markers that map one's past and set its subjective evaluation (Cohen and Shmotkin 2007;Shmotkin 2005;Shmotkin et al 2006;Shrira and Shmotkin 2008). We assumed that anchor periods, while revealing how individuals treat the special meanings of their life's milestones, are also part of the process whereby individuals' biographical experiences cumulate into characteristic paths of life (Ryff et al 2001).…”

Traumatic Stress and Long-Term Recovery

“…These mechanisms appear empirically intricate. Thus, while Holocaust survivors were found to be less able than controls to separate between their most miserable period in the past and their present life satisfaction, there were still survivors who were able to better separate between suffering in other periods and their present life satisfaction (Shrira & Shmotkin, 2008). Also, Holocaust survivors were found to maintain a higher subjective well-being (SWB) if they could deflate their emotional investment in the Holocaust period of their life while strengthening their emotional investment in non-Holocaust periods (Cohen & Shmotkin, 2007).…”