Transgenerational trauma

Transgenerational trauma, as the name implies, is trauma that spans multiple generations. It can occur in individual families as well as entire cultural groups. Children can exhibit symptoms of trauma that their parents experienced, even if the children didn’t directly experience the traumatic event. I often see this in clients whose parents fled war in their home country and raised their children in the United States.

The phenomenon of transgenerational trauma has been researched for the past couple of decades and its validity is no longer questioned. The mode of transmission is being researched from multiple perspectives including psychology, epigenetics, and spiritual traditions. I will not discuss those here and instead will share what I have witnessed and experienced with clients.

I have worked with transgenerational trauma in nearly all of my clients who have done deep work in the subconscious and what I have found goes far beyond one or two generations. The whole of human history is rife with genocide and other atrocities. If you go back far enough in your family history, you will undoubtedly find a connection to some major atrocity, whether your ancestor was a victim, perpetrator, witness, or survivor. So you can imagine the far-reaching impact that traumatic events like war, even when it happens on the other side of the world, can have on the entire human race for generations. We are all carrying the imprints of past genocide within us.

Fortunately, it’s not all bad news. Profound healing is possible and it doesn’t take generations. What I have seen with clients and in my own personal experience, is that the healing work we do from the present moment as individuals ripples outward in both time and space so we can have a tremendously positive and healing impact on not only the people around us but on past and future generations of our own lineage as well. Because we are all connected, individual healing means collective healing.