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Table 1 Sample of data analysis: construction of categories

From: Transgenerational transmission of trauma and resilience: a qualitative study with Brazilian offspring of Holocaust survivors

Coded original transcript

Descriptive categories

Conceptual categories

Participant11: “This secret I carried, I found out that it was their secret (c1)… between us, there are no relations of love, there are survival relations (c2)… It’s this whole strategy for infusing their children with a manual for surviving a collective disaster. To this day, I bear a trace of this Holocaust survival handbook (c3)… in a way, I was told, you have to recognize the signs of a disaster before others do (c4)”

c1: Transmission of family secrets

c2: Parenting style

c2: Impaired parental function

c1, c3, c4: Transgenerational transmission of trauma

c3: Transmission of fear and of a terrifying world view

c4: Transmission of mistrust and anticipation of disasters

Participant 5: “Each day I tell the story of my father, in this play I am performing in the theatre, it seems I understand a little more (c5)… To tell this story in an artistic way – using music, dance, the theatre, painting – is also a way of showing the world what happened (c6)”

c5: Symbolic dimension of art

c5, c6: Pathways of psychical work over by offspring

c6: Art as a possibility of representing the catastrophe

Participant 4: “My father shows me the story of a man who lived through all those things and is here, right now, moving forward… (c7) this attitude reaches me in a certain way. I think I grew up with very few fears” (c8)

c7: Resilient expressions in parents’ lives

c7, c8: Intergenerational transmission of resilience

 

c8: Pathways of resilience in offspring