The Extended Body: Vicarious Memories and Mimetic Capacities in Transgenerational Trauma

Abstract

Drawing from enactivist theory, this paper examines how certain cases of transgenerational trauma manifest as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in the descendants of survivors who did not experience the event directly. It argues that psychopathology develops from an embodied form of vicarious memory, conveyed through mimetic capacities and emotional resonances that involve the transfer of emotional and behavioral patterns from parents to children, affecting their sense of self. Children’s reenactments of their parents’ emotional states do not merely replay the parents’ trauma but are also perceived and integrated into the children’s life as their own. This, in turn, biases their sense-making, which is further reinforced by background emotions in the household. Over time, certain mnemonic features contribute to the persistence of the initial emotional load, such as the simplification of events in collective memory and the reliance of embodied vicarious memories on somatic markers, which also fuel PTSD development. Finally, the paper briefly explores the implications of embodiment for understanding mnemonic causality.