'Dear Ellyn': a creative-relational inquiry into intergenerational resonance from a transgender, Jewish descendant

Abstract

The ghostly presence of my late grandmother, Ellyn, who died four years before I was born, has been a constant source of curiosity and insight in my life. Through exploring this link to her over my lifetime, I have come to understand myself, Ellyn and the history which precedes us both more profoundly. In this body of work, I write letters to my late grandmother and engage with theorists, such as Stephen Frosh, Galit Atlas and Jack Halberstam, to better understand this bond. As a transmasculine person, I dialogue with my grandmother about my transition and work to make sense of the beginnings, endings and transitions we have both endured. I introduce the term intergenerational resonance – a transgenerational connection between two people which seemingly disrupts normative notions of space and time.

Additionally, I formulate two concepts – inherited wisdom and retroactive redemption – as a means of exploring the material which moves backwards and forwards in time as a result of the intergenerational resonance. I bring in my work as a psychotherapist and explore the ways in which these intergenerational dynamics are relevant to counselling and psychotherapy. This dissertation seeks to recognise the haunting nature of intergenerational transmissions while troubling the prevailing notion that the lingering material must be understood, felt and then released. I, thinking and feeling with Ellyn, carve a new way forward in which an ongoing dialogue may be forged with the past.