Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book illustrates comprehensive way of psychological phenomena that emerged in the interviews. It introduces a conceptual model for analysing the contents of the interviews, which is followed by a presentation of what is told in the life histories about different phases of persecution under Nazism. The book discusses genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It focuses on two men who, each on his own, recounted memories of the genocide in Rwanda. Ideas obtained from the interviews leads to the development of conceptual models that have been integrated into a theory about trauma-related affects. This theory is named the "affect propeller", a model that may serve as an analytic tool for the affect regulating of extremely traumatized individuals. The book also introduces two new concepts that are related to how the life history is told. First is trauma linking and other is generational linking.