The Power of Words: The Relationship Between Emotional Imagery, Depression, and Anxiety Indices in Child Holocaust Survivor Narratives

Stacy J Beach, Pace University

Abstract

This paper describes a research project that studied the narratives of child Holocaust survivors and the relationship between referential activity (RA), distinctive circumstances of their survivorship, as well as narrative-derived indices of anxiety, depression, and related clinical characteristics. Childhood trauma, as studied outside the specific context of the Holocaust, hasbeen found to impact individuals in a variety of ways, resulting in outcomes during adolescence and adulthood associated with PTSD, depression, and anxiety. RA takes into consideration the referential linking function, or a way by which nonverbal inner experience, including emotional experience and imagery, is connected to language. This research project studied how one's levelof RA in a traumatic event narrative, drawn from a project interviewing child Holocaust Survivors (3.5-6 decades in retrospect), relates to the outcome of depression or anxiety symptoms, and how that is moderated by a number of factors, including demographics and wartime specifics. Results found a positive relationship between RA and anxiety, with the relationship moderated by gender, circumstances, and separation from parents.

Subject Area

Clinical psychology

Recommended Citation

Beach, Stacy J, "The Power of Words: The Relationship Between Emotional Imagery, Depression, and Anxiety Indices in Child Holocaust Survivor Narratives" (2022). ETD Collection for Pace University. AAI30500867.
https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI30500867

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