Like the generation before them, they may live with heightened anxiety, major depression, have difficulty connecting with others and regulating their feelings, and it may negatively affect how they parent their own children. Most widely studied among children of Holocaust survivors, generational trauma, also called intergenerational or transgenerational trauma, refers to the effects of trauma that get passed down a family’s lineage, changing the lives of not just those who experienced a traumatic event but of subsequent generations that never had direct exposure to it. It’s a psychological phenomenon is known as generational trauma. “I really believed that I didn’t matter.”Īs Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stretches into a second month, descendants of survivors of previous conflicts say they fear the war there could leave lasting scars on Ukrainians living through it - as well as on the generations that follow them. Until now.“It made me feel like my feelings didn’t matter, my problems didn’t matter,” she said, adding that the harsh responses laid the groundwork for her lifelong anxiety and depression. Healing requires a holistic approach that has so far been absent from the field of psychology. These wounds are complex, impacting our minds, bodies, and spirits. This trauma can be rooted in the experiences of ancestors, who may have suffered due to unhealthy family dynamics, and it can be collective, the result of a shared experience like systemic oppression, or harmful ingrained behaviors in a culture like the acceptance of physical discipline of children, or even a natural disaster like a pandemic. This trauma is why some of us become estranged from our families, why some of us are people pleasers, why some of us find ourselves in codependent relationships.

Eventually, this hurt can injure an entire lineage, metastasizing across years and generations. When emotions are left unhealed, they similarly cause harm that spreads to other parts of our lives, hurting our family, friends, community members, and others. When a physical wound is left unhealed, it continues to cause pain and can infect the whole body. Buqué teaches readers how trauma is transmitted from one generation to the next and how they can break the cycle through tangible therapeutic practices, learning to pass down strength instead of pain to future generations. Weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room, Dr. With Break the Cycle, she delivers the definitive guide to healing inherited trauma. Mariel Buqué, a leading trauma psychologist, comes this groundbreaking guide to transforming intergenerational pain into intergenerational abundance. Mariel Buqué, PhD, a Columbia University–trained trauma-informed psychologist and practitioner of holistic healingįrom Dr.

The definitive, paradigm-shifting guide to healing intergenerational trauma-weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room-from Dr. A Next Big Idea Club must-read title for January 2024

Books on intergenerational trauma