Intergenerational Trauma: What It Is & How to Heal

What Is Intergenerational Trauma?

Trauma leaves a lasting impact on a person. It can shape their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, but it can also affect their parenting, communication, and connection with their children. With intergenerational trauma, a child is exposed indirectly to the trauma of a parent, which can become a generational cycle. In some cases, the parent, unintentionally, will place the child in similar situations that led to their trauma.

Who Does Intergenerational Trauma Affect?

No family or individual is immune to traumatic experiences that can have a lasting impact on the person as well as their family members. When thinking about trauma and its impact, many people think about war veterans. However, 60% of men and 50% of women experience at least one traumatic event during their lifetime.¹¹

Traumatic events that may lead to intergenerational trauma include parental incarceration, divorce, alcohol use disorder, domestic violence, child abuse (e.g. sexual, physical, or emotional), or natural disasters.

Historical Trauma

When discussing intergenerational trauma, one must also think about historical events causing collective trauma that may have a lasting impact on generations to come, such as the Holocaust, refugee camps, and slavery, all of which have had enduring effects on generations of people worldwide.

Transgenerational Trauma & Genocide

According to the Administration for Children and Families, historical trauma, such as the Holocaust and slavery, is intergenerational trauma experienced by a cultural group with a history of suffering from systemic oppression, more specifically known as genocide.

Other genocides that must be considered when thinking about historical trauma include (but are not limited to) the Rwandan genocide, the Bosnian genocide, and Darfur genocide. When historical trauma is left unaddressed, it can have a cumulative impact that reverberates across generations in the form of psychological, emotional, and even physical trauma.²

How Transgenerational Trauma Is Passed On

Traumatic experiences can be transmitted physiologically, environmentally, and socially.³ Adult children with parents diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) often describe damaged, preoccupied parents who were emotionally not available when needed. There are various ways these parents can pass down their symptoms to their children.⁴

The following symptoms experienced by parents may impact their children:⁴

• Parents may relive traumatic events, become emotionally detached and numb, or even experience dissociative episodes in which they become detached from reality. These symptoms can impede the child’s ability to develop a reasonable sense of safety and predictability in the world.
• Parents affected by trauma may be less able to respond optimally during usual developmental crises and in result, are unable to help their child comprehend the world in a healthy manner.
• Parents suffering from PTSD may also have difficulty modeling a healthy sense of independence, appropriate self-soothing mechanisms and emotional regulation, and maintaining a balanced perspective when life challenges arise.
• Parents may model catastrophic or inappropriately numbed and emotionally disconnected responses.e.

Symptoms of Intergenerational Trauma

Individuals have varying reactions to traumatic events and oftentimes do not realize the impact of the event. Symptoms of intergenerational trauma may vary depending on the events that families have experienced and can be physical, emotional, or behavioral. Family members who have suffered traumatic events may have symptoms associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Therefore, it is imperative for families to be familiar with these symptoms.

Symptoms of intergenerational trauma may be mistaken for other disorders, and can include denial, depersonalization, isolation, memory loss, nightmares, psychic numbing, hypervigilance, substance abuse, identification with death, and unresolved grief.³

Other commons symptoms of intergenerational trauma may include but are not limited to:

• Lack of trust of others
• Anger
• Irritability
• Nightmares
• Fearfulness
• Inability to connect with others

Millions of children in a year are exposed to traumatic events and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that impact not only them but generations to come. The exposure to transgenerational trauma can have a lifelong effect on children. For school age children it is important to know that many signs and symptoms present when children are in the academic setting. Undealt-with trauma can manifest itself by children avoiding school, difficulty focusing, dropping out of school, decrease in grades and test scores, and behavioral challenges such as suspensions and expulsions.

Intergenerational Trauma Examples

Intergenerational trauma can show up in a variety of situations—here are a few examples:

• A man is traumatized by the sudden and tragic death of his parents. He is directly impacted and begins to dramatically withdraw from his family members before becoming violent and aggressive. His young son is indirectly impacted by this trauma and directly impacted by the trauma of his father physically abusing him and his mother.
• A woman was sexually abused by her uncle as a child. Although she can see the negative impact this had on her life, she allows her daughter to spend time with this same man. Their interaction leads to more sexual abuse with another generation experiencing the same trauma. This time, though, the daughter has reason to be angry with mother for being placed in that situation.
• A woman was raped as a teen and became pregnant as a result. To manage the pain of raising a child of sexual assault, she began to drink alcohol and use drugs. Due to the mother’s substance use, the child was exposed to poverty, neglect, and various forms of abuse.

Healing Intergenerational Trauma

Intergenerational trauma took generations to form, so no one should expect to reverse this trend immediately. Though the road is difficult, there are practical steps someone can use to heal from intergenerational trauma:

• Share the secret: Secrets, lies, and deception are central to intergenerational trauma. To begin healing, people need to know the extent of past issues.
• Identify and discuss the impact: Once the secrets are shared, people can begin to see the impact of the trauma. Anger, sadness, anxiety, and substance use could all stem from trauma.
• Work as a team: With intergenerational trauma, it is challenging to know who is a victim and who is a perpetrator. Rather than pointing fingers, work as one unit with the goal of improving the family now and for future generations.
• Avoid past mistakes: Whatever thoughts, feelings, and behaviors were born from trauma must be ended. The family needs to find ways to stop adding new trauma by changing their habits.
• Bring in the professionals: Trauma is always impactful, but intergenerational trauma takes a heavy toll that requires professional treatment to resolve.