# Developing a Strong Sense of Coherence as a Pathway Beyond Intergenerational Trauma: Narratives of Adult Children of Vietnamese Boat Refugees

## TL;DR

This study explores how adult children of Vietnamese boat refugees overcome intergenerational trauma by developing a strong sense of coherence and meaning from their past.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a salutogenic, lifespan-oriented framework for adult recovery from intergenerational trauma, shifting focus from childhood interventions to adult resilience.

## Key findings

- Maladaptive family interactions, such as high parental expectations and harsh parenting, are linked to intergenerational trauma in Vietnamese boat refugee families.
- Developing a strong sense of coherence through meaning-making and reframing relationships with parents helps adult children overcome trauma legacies.
- A salutogenic approach focusing on adult recovery offers new insights into intergenerational trauma beyond childhood interventions.

## Abstract

Public health relevance—How does this work relate to a public health issue?
Intergenerational trauma is commonly experienced across various populations around the world, making it a public health issue with a burden sustained across generations.Understanding how the adult children of Vietnamese boat refugees overcome the intergenerational impact of trauma is essential for a transferrable understanding of adult recovery and movement toward health.

Intergenerational trauma is commonly experienced across various populations around the world, making it a public health issue with a burden sustained across generations.

Understanding how the adult children of Vietnamese boat refugees overcome the intergenerational impact of trauma is essential for a transferrable understanding of adult recovery and movement toward health.

Public health significance—Why is this work of significance to public health?
This study contributes a salutogenic, lifespan-oriented framework for understanding recovery beyond childhood impacts of intergenerational trauma.This study shifts the attention from childhood intervention focusing on traumatized parents and child–parent dyads for intergenerational trauma to adult recovery through meaning making, enhanced understanding, and differentiation from maladaptive patterns of childhood family.

This study contributes a salutogenic, lifespan-oriented framework for understanding recovery beyond childhood impacts of intergenerational trauma.

This study shifts the attention from childhood intervention focusing on traumatized parents and child–parent dyads for intergenerational trauma to adult recovery through meaning making, enhanced understanding, and differentiation from maladaptive patterns of childhood family.

Public health implications—What are the key implications or messages for practitioners, policy makers and/or researchers in public health?
Healthcare services for the refugee population should be provided in a culturally responsive manner.Seeing the good side of events, drawing meaning from the past, and differentiation from the impacts of childhood trauma-shaped family interactions contribute as potential pathways for adult recovery from intergenerational trauma.

Healthcare services for the refugee population should be provided in a culturally responsive manner.

Seeing the good side of events, drawing meaning from the past, and differentiation from the impacts of childhood trauma-shaped family interactions contribute as potential pathways for adult recovery from intergenerational trauma.

Maladaptive family interaction is one of the mechanisms through which trauma is transmitted across generations. The current intervention approach for trauma-affected families focuses on traumatized parents and child–parent dyads during childhood. This leaves a gap in how adult children, who might no longer live with their parents, can overcome the negative impacts of maladaptive childhood interactions with parents as a legacy of parental trauma history. This study focuses on the children of Vietnamese boat refugees in their 30s and 40s in two cities in Norway, applying narrative interviews to elicit long narratives about their lifespan experiences. A hybrid analytic approach utilizes Thematic Network Analysis, informed by a conceptual framework integrating salutogenesis theory and Bowen family systems theory. The findings reveal that maladaptive parent–child interactions in Vietnamese boat refugee families include parents’ high expectations, harsh parenting, children’s obligation to please parents, and adultification, which are trauma-shaped and mediated by Vietnamese culture. Developing a strong sense of coherence (SOC), characterized by enhancing one’s understanding of the self in relation to family, making meaning regarding the past, and playing an active role in reframing relationships with one’s parents, serves as a pathway to outgrow the impacts of maladaptive patterns in one’s family of origin. Overall, this paper contributes a salutogenic, lifespan-oriented framework for understanding recovery beyond childhood impacts of intergenerational trauma.