“Parents who are still in a trauma state may miss cues to care for us, and may be unable to engage us in ways that are nurturing so that we can build a healthy emotional foundation,” Buqué said. How our caregivers interact with us and model behavior can also transmit intergenerational trauma. Parental stress during pregnancy has been associated with higher rates of both physical illness and mental health challenges for those babies. “It creates a biological vulnerability,” Mariel Buqué, psychologist and author of the forthcoming book “Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma.” “It may look like a genetic predisposition to really feel emotions in a big way, or perhaps a bigger propensity to experience stress or trauma.”Īnd our nervous systems begin to develop in utero. Another study found that the sons of Union Army soldiers who endured grueling conditions as prisoners of war were more likely to die young than the sons of soldiers who were not prisoners. For example, research shows that people who have experienced racial discrimination carry more of one type of epigenetic change that can lead to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and asthma than people who have not. The study of epigenetics suggests that if we have a parent who lived in chronic stress, then that trauma gets imprinted into their genetic encoding - and those genetic markers are passed onto us. The answer lies in both our biology and our psychology. And then there’s the matter of my deceased father and more extended branches of my family and ancestry who I’m not in connection with and/or will never be able to tap into directly. I see glimpses of what my mom experienced herself and passed along, but I’m sure there’s more under the surface I’m oblivious to. At each new stage of aging, I come to understand my past - and past versions of me - so much better! But I also become more aware of how there’s more to unpack that I may never understand - high on that list is intergenerational trauma. A younger, burgeoning field of study is now examining the painful imprints of lifetimes before our own - those of our parents, our grandparents, and on.Ī Group Therapy reader sent us her thoughts, and a question, about intergenerational trauma:īecause I work with young people, I’m often reflecting on my own childhood experiences, complete with the memories of trauma I’ve brought with me into adulthood. The concept that personal history plays a key role in our psychology has been formally recognized since the days of Freud. No corner of our lives goes untouched by the shadows of our former selves. It shows up in the choices we make, our relationships, our work. Woven throughout most of this newsletter is the understanding that our past informs our present.

Intergenerational trauma in oscar wao