Concert Pianist ‘Suffering Vicarious Trauma’ From Parents’ Holocaust Experiences

A Jewish-Ukrainian concert pianist whose teenage son has been taken into care after social workers raised concerns about his home life is suffering from “vicarious trauma” as a result of his parents’ experiences in the Holocaust, according to a psychologist.

Melanie Gill told a family court hearing in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, that the pianist was “continually overwhelmed by his traumatic antecedents, associated with both his and his parents’ traumatic past”.

The psychologist told Judge Veronica Hammerton that the pianist was “sometimes unable within his thought processing to consistently represent [his son] accurately as a child separate from himself”. Detail has emerged in the latest ruling on the case – which has been analysed by a number of judges including Judge Hammerton.

Read more at the UK Independent