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Unspoken Secrets and Nonverbal Elements in Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma and its Relation to Addiction

10/19/2022 - Monthly Meeting

Unspoken Secrets and Nonverbal Elements in Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma and its Relation to Addiction

7:30pm-9pm
1.5 CE Credits
Meeting Location: Zoom

Karla Lizette Gomez, M.S.


Through a previously conducted study the presenter discovered that a relationship exists between the unmourned trauma from ancestors or parents and the narcissistic loss in individuals struggling with substance abuse. The presenter proposes ideas on how to approach individuals struggling with trauma that cannot be spoken or cognized, and reenact trauma through repetition and working-through it preverbally. The presenter will focus on intergenerational transmission of trauma and the construction of a narrative within the individual.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Identify links between intergenerational trauma and psychoanalytic conceptualizations of loss to addiction;

  2. Demonstrate how the process of ego splitting that appears in drug addiction is related to the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

  3. Identify whether or not nonverbal and unspoken trauma in the individual is in relation to unresolved parental childhood trauma.


Presenter Bio:
Karla Lizette Gomez received a Masters in Clinical Psychology from the Universidad de Monterrey, and is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Mexico. Currently she is in the process of obtaining licensure in the United States as well. She has presented a case study in a live supervision panel with Nancy McWilliams at Division 39: Society of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology Spring meeting 2019. Karla is also part of the volunteer committee and is an active board member in the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society (APCS) and Section VIII Couple and Family Therapy and Psychoanalysis for Division 39: Society of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology. She was also a fellow in the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy. Her research (Mythological Bridge Between Intergenerational Transmission of Unmourned Loss and Addiction) was published in The Psychoanalytic Review in 2020. Karla used to work as a psychotherapist at Desarrollo Integral en Movimiento A.C., a residential rehabilitation center for substance abuse for 3 years, and is currently working as an Outpatient Family Therapist in Hanover Township Youth and Family Services in Schaumburg, Illinois. In addition to intergenerational transmission of trauma, her interests include art therapy, psychosis, and Greek mythology.