The Healing of Nations

Abstract

Based on the apparent transgenerational traumas experienced by clients of two psychoanalysts working in the Balkans region over a four-year period, from 2012 to 2016, this article presents an understanding of recovery from war trauma at the national and cultural levels in terms of individual grief models. As examples of unresolved transgenerational grief, the experiences of the Jasenovac children in concentration camps in Croatia during the Second World War are cited. The presented models can be applied to promote healing, and the need for monuments to aid the mourning process is emphasized.