Written on the body

Sue Armstrong’s programme on Radio 4 All in the Womb (produced by Ruth Evans) should be required listening for anyone dealing directly with the refugee crisis, with those who have fled from intense fear and terrible violence in their home countries. Armstrong has been investigating recent developments in our understanding of the impact of severe trauma, how it affects not just the mind but also the body, creating physical changes that also need to be addressed. Those who lived through the Holocaust, for example, who were in prison camps or were forced to hide in dark, cramped, inhuman conditions, perpetually afraid that at any moment they might be discovered, have been found to have low levels of cortisol.

This is the hormone that the body releases into the bloodstream as we experience panic and fear and whose main function is to mobilise our energy and will to survive. Much more significant, though, is the discovery that the descendants of those who have suffered war, violence, incessant fear also have lower levels of cortisol than average. The biblical warnings about bad times being passed on from generation to generation are not just mythical prophecies. Scientists now have proof that trauma is passed on, or rather its impact on how we feel, and how we behave, can be superimposed on the DNA of the next generation.

Dr Rachel Yehuda works in New York and had a critical opportunity to investigate the effects of trauma on body and mind after 9/11. We heard from Cathy Langford, who woke up on the morning of 11 September and realised she was going into labour. It was a beautiful day and she and her husband at first thought what a perfect day on which to give birth. But they were living in an apartment within sight of the Twin Towers and as they ate breakfast their building shook and they heard a huge explosion.