Intergenerational Trauma

It is really only within the last 100 years or so that we have started to recognize that the effects of trauma do not necessarily end with the person who experienced it.

Intergenerational trauma was first researched in 1966 in looking at the high rates of psychological distress among children of Holocaust survivors. Trauma can be passed down from one generation to another in a variety of ways.

One way is through child rearing practices. Trauma can affect how a parent or caregiver pays attention to, teaches or disciplines their children. For example, they may only be able to attend to children acting out, they may teach their children to be hypervigilant as the world is not safe, and they may be abusive in their disciple. 

Trauma from events can influence an individual’s genes and they way they are suppressed or expressed. These changes can in turn be passed down to the next generation.

Trauma experienced by a pregnant person during pregnancy can affect the child’s physiology and psychology. 

How the family talks about, or doesn’t talk about, trauma effects how children see the world and the meaning they make from that perspective can increase the chances of a chronic stress response in the child. 

The effects of mass cultural trauma and suppression have been found to echo across generations, such as those experienced in the US by Native American (genocide, Trail of Tears, and residential schools) and Black Americans (slavery, Jim Crow and segregation). This type of past trauma and on-going cultural suppression affects mental health and creates a ripple effect through the generations.