What Came Before You: Intergenerational Trauma by Lea Nguyen
You may have heard what trauma is, but what exactly is intergenerational trauma (sometimes referred to as historical trauma, multigenerational trauma, or secondary traumatization)?
First, let’s begin with trauma. Trauma is a response to an incident or a series of traumatic experiences that causes serious emotional, mental, or physical harm. Some of these experiences can be the loss of a loved one, severe or life-threatening illness, a natural disaster, childhood neglect, living with a loved one who misuses substances, racism, discrimination, or witnessing an act(s) of violence. Experiencing any kind of trauma leaves us with lasting adverse effects on our day-to-day functioning and mental health and well-being. We may feel disconnected or confused, experience anxiety or depression, have trouble sleeping, or suffer from headaches and/or other types of body aches. Our mind and body react in numerous ways to cope.
Intergenerational trauma is trauma that was directly experienced by an individual or groups of people (multiple family members; community; specific cultural, racial, or ethnic group), that gets passed down from one generation to another. Although individuals may not have experienced the trauma directly, the psychological effects of trauma have been transmitted from generations past.
Intergenerational trauma was first identified and studied in descendants of Holocaust survivors. Studies have found a number of reported behavioral and cognitive difficulties and disturbances including worries of parental trauma being repeated, low self-esteem from minimization and invalidation of own life experiences compared to parents, over-identification with parents, tendency towards catastrophizing, traumatic nightmares, hypervigilance, shame, guilt, anxiety, and dysphoria. Research has been then expanded on descendants of Japanese American internment camps; Native American tribes; Vietnam War veterans; United States enslavement; refugees; and other trauma survivors of famine, war, and genocide.
The mechanisms of transmission of intergenerational trauma are unclear, but it is theorized to be passed down through a multitude of factors including epigenetics, parenting, and repeated patterns of harmful and unhealthy behavior patterns and attitudes.
Parents who are trauma survivors may transmit genetic vulnerabilities. In other words, trauma can be inherited. Trauma changes how our genes function in reaction to our environment. For example, a study was found that male offspring of Civil War soldiers who spent time in prison affected their longevity at older ages. They were more likely to die early after age 45 than those whose fathers had not been prisoners of war.
Additionally, trauma survivors may externalize their post-traumatic symptoms in various ways. Parents who have survived trauma may have difficulty bonding and creating healthy emotional attachments with their children. How children navigate the world is, in part, a reflection from what they learned from their parents. For example, what they may learn is how to cope in face of hardships. The next generation then learns those coping mechanisms from their parents and so on and so forth.
Two common unhealthy coping mechanisms that many families use to cope with intergenerational trauma is:
· Denial: Families refuse to acknowledge that the traumatic event(s) happened
· Minimization: Families ignore the impact of the traumatic event(s). This makes it seem like the traumatic experience is not that big of a deal.
Sooner or later, intergenerational trauma will present itself no matter how hard we try to run or hide from it. So how does intergenerational trauma show in ourselves and in our families?
· A family member might seem untrustworthy of “outsiders” and the world.
· A family member might think showing and discussing emotions and feelings as a sign of weakness.
· A family member might seem hypervigilant and overprotective of family members even when there is no sign of danger.
· A family member isolates themselves from others including family members.
This is not an exhaustive list of how trauma can show up in ourselves and family members as children, grand-children, and even great-grandchildren of trauma survivors. You might see unhealthy boundaries or unhealthy behavior patterns too.
Putting intergenerational trauma into perspective, what you are feeling and experiencing came before you. How can we break this cycle?
Awareness and an understanding of intergenerational trauma is the first step in making the decision to heal. With intergenerational trauma in mind, we will understand together about you, your environment, and yours and your family’s past and how we can work together to help you heal from trauma.
At Haven Mental Health Counseling, our therapists are trained in a range of modalities to address intergenerational trauma and help you break the cycle. We utilize somatic modalities, which helps you understand how your body had been holding patterns of traumatization and work through the beliefs and patterns that come with it. Through the utilization of somatic interventions, we can work towards releasing these patterns from your nervous system and create shifts in your thoughts and behaviors.
EMDR can also be used to work through intergenerational trauma. With EMDR we identify the felt sense of despair/grief/anxiety and trace is back to its origins, which may be linked to destructive beliefs about yourself. We work through these painful feelings, identify and break harmful intergenerational cycles and thus move towards long term healing.
Here at Haven Mental Health Counseling, we have the resources to address trauma. If you are considering trauma therapy, we have a guide on what to expect that will help you prepare your journey to healing. If you’re ready to begin or have any questions about getting started, get in touch with us. Let’s begin this journey together.
References:
Yehuda, Rachel, and Amy Lehrner. “Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma Effects: Putative Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms.” World Psychiatry, vol. 17, no. 3, 2018, pp. 243–257., https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20568.
Costa, Dora L., et al. “Intergenerational Transmission of Paternal Trauma among US Civil War Ex-Pows.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 115, no. 44, 2018, pp. 11215–11220., https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1803630115.
“Office for Institutional Equity.” Inter-Generational Trauma: 6 Ways It Affects Families | Office for Institutional Equity, https://oie.duke.edu/inter-generational-trauma-6-ways-it-affects-families.