Working Through Intergenerational Trauma
Breaking the Cycle and Changing Your Legacy
Trauma doesn’t just impact one person—it ripples through families, shaping relationships, emotional patterns, and belief systems for generations. Intergenerational trauma refers to the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next. Whether through learned behaviors, genetic changes, or family dynamics, unresolved trauma can affect individuals in profound ways, often without them realizing it.
How Intergenerational Trauma Manifests in Families
Families affected by intergenerational trauma often exhibit patterns of dysfunction, emotional suppression, or hypervigilance. These patterns may stem from traumatic experiences such as war, forced displacement, abuse, addiction, or systemic oppression. The ways in which these experiences are processed—or left unprocessed—can lead to lasting psychological and emotional wounds.
Common signs of intergenerational trauma in families include:
Heightened Anxiety and Fear: Individuals may inherit an overwhelming sense of fear, even if they have never personally experienced the original trauma.
Family Secrets: Some of us come from families where secrets were held, but never discussed. This creates a culture of silence that leaves people struggling to understand their own emotional distress.
Repetitive Cycles: Patterns of abuse, neglect, addiction, or cut off may persist across generations.
Perfectionism and Overachievement: Some may respond by striving for control and success as a way to cope with deep-seated insecurities passed down through family narratives.
The Individual Impact of Intergenerational Trauma
For individuals, intergenerational trauma can manifest as anxiety, depression, difficulty forming healthy relationships, or even chronic physical conditions. It can lead to:
• Low Self-Worth: Feelings of inadequacy may stem from implicit messages passed down about one’s value or capabilities.
• Emotional Detachment: Some may struggle to form secure relationships and communicate feelings due to learned suppression of feelings.
• Guilt and Shame: A sense of obligation to “carry” family burdens can create overwhelming guilt, making it hard to prioritize personal healing.
• Difficulty Regulating Emotions: People may experience heightened, disproportionate, emotional reactivity or dissociation as a coping mechanism.
How Therapy Can Help Break the Cycle
Recognizing intergenerational trauma is the first step toward healing. Therapy provides a safe space to explore inherited pain, reframe narratives, and develop healthier coping mechanisms. Some effective therapeutic approaches include:
• Trauma-Focused Therapy: Helps individuals process and understand the roots of their trauma, providing tools to navigate emotional triggers and begin to separate themselves from the historical wounds held in the family system.
• Family Therapy: Addresses dysfunctional family dynamics and fosters open and more connected conversations between generations.
• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Aids in processing traumatic memories to reduce their emotional impact.
• Trauma Informed Somatic Therapy/Somatic Experiencing®: Supports the nervous system, allowing trauma that is stored in the body to move through, promoting a more regulated state of being.
The Power of Breaking the Cycle
Healing from intergenerational trauma can happen even if other family members stay stuck in dysfunctional patterns and don’t seek help. By acknowledging past wounds and working towards healing, we can transform family legacies from ones of pain to ones of resilience and empowerment. Working with a skilled therapist, who understands the nuances of intergenerational trauma, allows people to claim their emotional well-being and build healthier, more conscious relationships for future generations.
Breaking the cycle is possible. It starts with awareness, compassion, and the courage to heal.