Pauline the Psychologist on rewriting the story of Armenian grief
In recent years, conversations about generational trauma and its impact on our cultural psyche have become more prominent. For Armenians, this trauma is both historical and ongoing—most recently compounded by the crisis in Artsakh and continued threats to our homeland. How do we navigate this trauma? How do we work through our grief in ways that protect our mental wellness as a culture? When traumatic events have led to displacement or relocation, how can immigrant parents and their children work together to maintain healthy relationships? How do we maintain our culture while leaving room for new experiences and growth?
Pauline Yeghnazar Peck, or “Pauline the Psychologist” as she is known on social media, has been grappling with these questions for years in her work as a clinical psychologist. In a vulnerable conversation with the Weekly, Pauline offered strategies for navigating these cultural issues in mental health practices, drawing from personal experiences that uniquely position her expertise on the subject.
Born in Iran to an Armenian family, Pauline proudly identifies as Parskahye. Her grandfather started the Assemblies of God church, a born-again Christian community. After the regime change in 1979, the environment became unsafe for her family due to their leadership in the church. Pauline and her family relocated to Los Angeles to be near her mother’s side of the family.
After the move, Pauline felt as if she were straddling three different worlds: assimilation into life in the United States as well as Armenian and Iranian influences. Her parents were pastors of a Farsi-speaking church and provided counseling and support to immigrants from the Middle East. Her father also runs a nonprofit organization called Love Armenia, and has supported relief efforts in the country.
Pauline described her childhood self as “beautifully sensitive,” with a depth of emotion and social perceptiveness her family did not always have the resources to understand. She was often told not to think about or question certain issues in family dynamics. Mental health care was connected only to physical and spiritual well-being—areas in which she received an abundance of care and support.
Her first experience with caring directly for her mental health came when she was 24 years old, after the death of her mother following a decade-long battle with cancer. Then in graduate school and on track to becoming a sociology professor, Pauline and her father fell into periods of deep depression. When someone suggested therapy, Pauline initially resisted. Like many in our communities often do, she felt that it would be odd to discuss her family life with a stranger.
Nevertheless, Pauline decided to try it. She recalled two distinct thoughts from her first experience: therapy can be healing and transformative, and she was excited to bring it back to her community. Yet, there were certain things her therapist could not fully understand. She was inspired to switch her career path to psychology and started her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, without ever having taken a psychology class before.
“I was becoming the therapist I needed,” Pauline shared.
Through therapy, she became aware of her wounds, gaps and gifts from her cultural upbringing, and learned how to support her emotions beyond the spiritual and physical realms. During our conversation, I recalled that during my therapy training, there was little research available about the mental health experiences of SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African) communities, both in their countries and in diaspora communities. Most of the research I saw about Armenians was directly related to making sense of the intergenerational impacts of trauma from the Armenian Genocide. There was little to no information about how to actively work in a therapeutic setting with these individuals and families.
Pauline has been doing clinical work for about 15 years. Currently, she has a group practice with seven other clinicians called Noor Therapy and Wellness, based on a culturally-informed framework. Pauline has worked with many college-age students who are SWANA or children of immigrants. Though they come from a range of cultures, including Armenian, Nigerian, Ethiopian and Vietnamese, she has noticed commonalities in their experiences revolving around guilt, emotions seen as taboo, stresses on physical health, and family conflicts around topics such as religion, dating and even what to wear. She often saw her own experiences echoed in them.
Pauline leaned into these patterns to understand them on a macro-level, resulting in Bridging Gaps, Breaking Cycles— a business that provides resources to bridge gaps between the Western and Eastern worlds, as well as make necessary changes to reduce harmful and abusive patterns. The platform has numerous resources, including a free monthly book club, individual and group coaching designed specifically for daughters of immigrants, courses, as well as offerings for consulting and speaking engagements.
After years of her own practice, Pauline is passionate about educating other therapists, psychologists and professionals about how to approach working with this unique and often under-served population. Her goal is to be a “cultural change-maker.” Aside from her business, she has a thriving social media presence, growing to nearly 60,000 followers in the span of three years. Pauline considers her online presence a “love letter to other children of immigrants,” highlighting her desire to give back to her community.
In our conversation, Pauline shared how our community can tend to mental health, both individually and collectively, while constantly navigating trauma and grief. “Any people who have gone through a tremendous trauma—it’s not just acknowledging and remembering the trauma that’s going to give us healing. It’s going to be reclaiming the fullness of life,” she said.
Pauline clarified that, sometimes, joy is misunderstood in our culture—as something that denies and dismisses pain. But, she explained, we smile because we have known pain. She likened our mass cultural grief to her personal grief around the death of her mother. Pauline experienced survival guilt for her mother leaving this world too soon. Additionally, she often felt dissonance between how she could celebrate her birthday—only four days apart from her mother’s—when her mother is no longer there.
Her conclusion: “Grief has to have joy alongside it. Death has to have space for life alongside it.”
When an individual or a collective group has gone through significant trauma, we risk that trauma becoming our entire identity. In the case of Armenians, our pain has often not been externally acknowledged. Our grief about the recent events in Artsakh reignited and compounded our grief about the 1915 Genocide. Pauline asserts that rather than waiting for external validation and apologies from places we may not receive it, we can instead use our resources of joy, play, laughter, storytelling and vitality to reclaim our sense of wholeness.
Pauline asserts that rather than waiting for external validation and apologies from places we may not receive it, we can instead use our resources of joy, play, laughter, storytelling and vitality to reclaim our sense of wholeness.
However, accessing joy, especially during a month when we are constantly reminded of the trauma we have faced, can be difficult. I have often stated that the best rebellion against the crimes committed against us is to choose to live with more joy. This also protects our mental health, so we are able to continue the fight for acknowledgement and reparations. Pauline affirmed and expanded on this mentality by stating that our culture needs regular practices to metabolize our grief. While we have many ways to remember our grief, we have not found consistent ways to grow from it.
“We have been acting like grief is the obstacle, rather than the fact that it may be the way,” Pauline said.
She continued, “I read somewhere that to be Middle Eastern is to be very familiar with grief. And I think Armenians understand that, and so many SWANA and MENA-identified people can understand that. But also, to be a child of diaspora is to know grief. If all of these identities are going to have grief, finding ways to befriend grief, make space for grief, welcome grief, know grief, tend to grief—these are going to be essential for being able to remember that we are not dead. We are actually living for us, and for those who we have lost.”
She suggests the use of rituals, connection and grounding in order to metabolize grief and transform it into something useful and empowering. In psychology, we refer to this as post-traumatic growth. For example, in the case of Artsakh, we can ask, “What else?” How else do we define ourselves aside from our land? What are the resources we have that can never be taken away from us? What traits do we have individually and collectively that maintain our sense of self in the face of crisis? What are new resources and supports we can develop?
For many, reframing and befriending grief can feel threatening and scary. It may feel like we are losing our identity, as trauma has become a major part of our identity. We may feel like we are betraying our ancestors or letting those who have persecuted us win. We may fear that we will lose our desire to continue fighting. The irony is that if we remain stuck in grief, we let the other side win. They continue to hold power over us, rather than if we make the decision to expand ourselves and our identity.
Pauline offered her perspective on how to work through some of these initial fears and challenges. First, we must recognize that there is distance between what has happened to us, and who we truly are. When we have changes inflicted on us that are out of our control, such as violence and displacement, our bodies become over-protective and rewired for survival, due to a heightened perception of potential danger, Pauline explained. We resist that which does not feel in our control, associating it with helplessness and disempowerment. This resistance can give us an illusion of control. Trauma responses occur when our nervous systems do not have the resources to cope with what we are experiencing at the moment. However, when we make the active decision to allow for change and growth, we come fully into power and wholeness.
Some of this resistance has led to a disconnect between generations, which is a major aspect of Pauline’s work. People need support—not to be yelled at or shamed. All cultures go through change and growth, and this is healthy and necessary for our continued survival. Additionally, there needs to be a deeper appreciation for what each generation has to offer. This is a balancing act Pauline cultivates in her work: How can we understand our immigrant parents, and how can they understand us? How can we use a cultural lens to look at our differences and navigate them so there can still be connection? How do we honor traditions and explore new possibilities?
We need our elders to remind us of the stories we would not know otherwise and feel inspired by their survival. The elders need younger generations to show them how life is adapting through their influence. Pauline would love to see younger generations bring back new resources to serve their communities and approach conversations from a “both-and” perspective for expansion rather than “either-or.”
She shared how her experience of grieving her mother drew her back into family connection. As a college student, she had begun to disconnect from her family. But when her mother passed, she realized that she only had one living parent left—and wanted to understand him. Grief became her catalyst for growth, and she and her father have come to a deeper understanding of each other. Their relationship transformed through a desire for connection and true willingness to lean on each other.
The main message Pauline would like to impart is one of hope and healing as an extension of the sacrifices and survival of our ancestors.
Our parents and elders have done what they can, and they have given us so much. Now, it’s our turn to heal what they couldn’t, talk about what they couldn’t, reach for what they couldn’t.
“I think about how the work that we as children of immigrants do is so important. Our parents and elders have done what they can, and they have given us so much. Now, it’s our turn to heal what they couldn’t, talk about what they couldn’t, reach for what they couldn’t. This isn’t a betrayal of them and their sacrifice—it’s the completion and realization of it. And this work, while it starts with us, is not only for us. We heal our families and our communities by healing ourselves, even in small ways. I wonder what it would be like for people to see that the healing their children and grandchildren are participating in is not a threat to us but a gift. It is our path forward. Trauma is what we experienced, not who we are. This is our moment for reclamation. Grief and loss can diminish us if we do not seek support and tend to our wounds. And so too can grief be alchemized—it can give us access to greater joy, deeper connection, more meaning, a sense of gratitude. And we don’t have to look outside our culture to heal—we have the tools within us. We just need to reconnect with them.”
Dalita Getzoyan
“Grief has to have joy alongside it. Death has to have space for life alongside it.” Powerful quote and article.
Congratulations for a highly informative article on a profoundly important topic. Well done.