Understanding Intergenerational Trauma

Why do we carry pain that doesn’t seem to belong to us?

Sometimes, the patterns we struggle with — anxiety, guilt, people-pleasing, emotional disconnection — didn’t start with us. They were passed down, shaped by the survival strategies of generations before.

In this blog post, I explore the intergenerational cycle of trauma: how it’s transmitted, how it shows up in our lives, and how we can begin to heal. From emotional inheritance and family secrets to attachment styles and body-based responses, this piece gently guides you through the layers of inherited pain — and the power of becoming the cycle breaker.

Whether you’re starting your healing journey or deep in the work, this post is for you.

What You’ll Learn in This Blog

• What intergenerational trauma is — and how it can quietly shape our emotions, relationships, and sense of self

• The different ways trauma is passed down — through family patterns, nervous system responses, emotional roles, silence, and even biology

• How to begin healing — by recognising inherited pain, reclaiming your story, and creating new ways of relating to yourself and others

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You may find yourself repeating patterns you don’t understand — feeling anxiety that seems to have no cause, carrying guilt that doesn’t feel like your own, or struggling in relationships despite your best intentions. When these patterns seem persistent or deeply embedded, they may not have started with you. This is the essence of intergenerational trauma — a cycle of emotional pain and survival strategies passed down through families, often silently.

This cycle doesn’t begin with blame. Rather, it begins with awareness. Most families pass down both love and pain. Many of our parents or grandparents were doing their best in the face of immense hardship. Understanding how trauma travels across generations allows us to gently examine what we've inherited, what we want to keep, and what we are ready to let go of.

A Brief Historical Context

Intergenerational trauma is a relatively new area of focus in psychology, but the experiences it describes are ancient and widespread. Early studies looked at the descendants of Holocaust survivors, many of whom displayed symptoms of trauma despite not directly experiencing the events. Since then, research has expanded to include the children and grandchildren of enslaved people, Indigenous communities, and those impacted by war, forced migration, and colonialism.

What connects these different groups is not the specific trauma but the way it lives on — in bodies, in nervous systems, and in family relationships. These early findings opened the door to a much broader understanding: trauma doesn’t always end with the person who experienced it. Often, it gets passed on in subtle, powerful ways.

What Is Intergenerational Trauma?

Intergenerational trauma, also known as transgenerational or ancestral trauma, refers to the transmission of unhealed trauma from one generation to the next. This can happen through behaviour, emotional expression, parenting styles, relationship dynamics, and even biological pathways. Often, trauma that was never spoken about still finds ways to be expressed — through fear, silence, perfectionism, people-pleasing, or emotional disconnection.

For example, a parent who grew up in a household where emotions were dismissed may never have learned how to regulate or express their feelings. As a result, their children might grow up feeling emotionally unsupported, even if there was no overt neglect. The pain isn’t just passed down through stories, but through nervous system responses, coping mechanisms, and unspoken expectations.

Key signs of intergenerational trauma:

• A pervasive sense of fear, guilt, or shame with no clear origin

• Family patterns of emotional repression or over-control

• Repetition of relational patterns, such as abandonment or mistrust

Recognising that what we carry may not have begun with us is often the first step toward healing.

How Trauma Gets Passed Down

Trauma can be passed down in subtle, unconscious ways. A parent who grew up with emotional neglect or in a volatile home may develop hypervigilance or shut down emotionally as a survival mechanism. Without awareness, they may parent their children in ways that feel distant, controlling, anxious, or unpredictable.

Take, for example, a mother who grew up in poverty and learned to be constantly alert to danger. Even when she builds a stable life, her nervous system might still react as though the world is unsafe. Her children may grow up in a secure environment but absorb her fear and tension, learning that the world is a threatening place.

Children adapt to these dynamics, often without understanding that their responses are protective in nature. These adaptive behaviours — such as avoiding conflict, suppressing needs, or striving for perfection — can become hardwired responses that follow them into adulthood and are then passed on again.

Patterns to look for:

• Chronic people-pleasing or approval-seeking

• Intense need to control one’s environment

• Difficulty identifying or expressing emotions

Understanding how these responses develop helps us bring compassion to behaviours we might otherwise criticise in ourselves.

The Inherited Voice of the Inner Critic

One often overlooked aspect of intergenerational trauma is the inner critic — an internal voice that judges, shames, or pushes us beyond our limits. This voice is rarely our own. It’s shaped by what was modelled, spoken, or implied by the generations before us.

For example, if a parent was harshly criticised growing up, they may have internalised that voice and unknowingly passed it on through perfectionistic expectations or subtle disapproval. A child may grow into an adult who never feels good enough, constantly driven to achieve, avoid failure, or please others.

Healing involves recognising that the inner critic may be inherited — and that it’s possible to challenge its authority. With compassion, we can begin replacing it with a kinder, more supportive voice.

Emotional Inheritance

Just as we inherit physical traits, we can also inherit emotions and internalised beliefs. A child may pick up on a parent’s unresolved grief, unspoken rage, or chronic fear, and internalise those emotional states as their own. This can create confusion, especially when the child doesn’t understand why they feel so burdened or uneasy.

For instance, a child may grow up with a constant sense of guilt, despite being a kind and conscientious person. Later in therapy, they may discover that this guilt stems from a parent who carried unresolved shame from their own childhood. Without ever naming it, the child absorbed that emotional atmosphere as their own internal truth.

We call this emotional inheritance — carrying feelings or roles that are not ours to hold. For example, a child may become the family’s emotional caretaker, absorbing others’ pain to keep the peace. As adults, they may struggle with boundaries, over-responsibility, or burnout. They may also struggle to differentiate their needs from the needs of others.

Some common emotionally inherited roles:

• The fixer or peacemaker

• The high achiever who must never fail

• The parentified child who grows up too fast

Healing involves naming and releasing what was never ours to begin with and developing a more authentic sense of self.

The Role of Silence and Secrets

Silence is one of the most powerful carriers of trauma. Families may avoid speaking about painful events — such as abuse, death, addiction, or migration — out of shame, fear, or cultural expectations. But what remains unspoken doesn’t disappear. It seeps into family dynamics, often leaving children to feel a vague sense of unease or tension they can’t explain.

Sometimes the silence is around an entire family story: a parent who was adopted but never told, a sibling who died and was never mentioned again, or a relative who disappeared from the family narrative. Children are highly perceptive. Even when the facts are hidden, they sense the emotional gaps.

Secrets can create ruptures in trust and communication. When things are hidden, children often fill in the gaps with their own interpretations — frequently blaming themselves or imagining worse scenarios. In this way, silence itself becomes part of the trauma. Openness, honesty, and gentle truth-telling are vital steps in breaking this part of the cycle.

Signals that silence or secrets may be present:

• An unspoken family rule to never talk about certain topics

• A sense of "something’s wrong" with no clear reason

• Emotional tension when specific people or memories are mentioned

Attachment and Relational Patterns

Our early relationships shape our attachment styles — how we relate to others and how safe we feel in connection. Trauma can disrupt this foundation, leading to patterns of avoidance, anxiety, or disorganisation in close relationships. These styles are often passed down through generations, especially if caregivers themselves didn’t receive secure, nurturing attachments in their own childhoods.

You may find yourself fearing abandonment, feeling emotionally shut down, or unsure how to trust. You might unconsciously recreate relationships that echo early wounds, even if they bring pain. Perhaps you’re drawn to emotionally unavailable partners or find closeness overwhelming and pull away.

These responses are not personal flaws; they are reflections of what was modelled to you. Healing means learning new ways of relating — both to others and to yourself. This might involve developing secure attachment through therapy, learning to self-soothe, or practising boundaries and vulnerability in safe relationships.

Helpful questions to explore:

• What did love and connection look like in my family?

• What roles did I play in order to feel safe?

• Do my current relationships reflect safety, or survival?

Cultural and Collective Trauma

Intergenerational trauma is not just personal — it is also collective. Groups who have experienced systemic oppression, colonisation, slavery, genocide, displacement, or war may carry trauma through community narratives, family norms, and survival behaviours. This trauma often becomes part of a shared identity, affecting self-worth, resilience, and a sense of belonging.

This can show up in many forms: a deep mistrust of authority, internalised racism, chronic overachievement, or a sense of invisibility. People from communities impacted by collective trauma may carry an enduring pressure to prove themselves or avoid failure at all costs.

Healing here involves reclaiming identity, reconnecting with cultural strengths, and validating the pain that was endured but rarely acknowledged. It may include exploring intergenerational pride and resistance, as well as grief and loss. Community, storytelling, and cultural healing practices can play a key role.

Ways to support healing from collective trauma:

• Connect with ancestral wisdom and community

• Name systems that caused harm and challenge injustice

• Honour resilience alongside pain

How Trauma Lives in the Body

Recent advances in neuroscience and epigenetics suggest that trauma doesn’t only affect behaviour and emotions — it can also influence biology. Traumatic stress may alter gene expression, particularly in relation to the body’s stress response system. This means that some individuals may inherit a heightened sensitivity to stress, even if they didn’t experience the original trauma firsthand.

A person might experience panic or anxiety in seemingly safe situations, not realising their body is primed to expect danger. Their nervous system learned this pattern from previous generations. Trauma lives in the body, shaping posture, breath, digestion, and muscle tension.

Understanding this can be deeply validating. It helps explain why talk therapy alone may not be enough, and why body-based approaches like EMDR, somatic therapy, yoga, and breathwork can support healing. Releasing trauma involves not just insight, but regulation and reconnection with the body.

Helpful practices for nervous system regulation:

• Grounding techniques and breathwork

• Movement, stretching, or trauma-informed yoga

• Restoring a sense of safety through touch, rhythm, or presence

Breaking the Cycle

Breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma is courageous work. It involves noticing inherited patterns and choosing to respond differently. That might mean learning to set boundaries, feeling your feelings for the first time, or no longer playing roles that don’t serve you.

It might also mean choosing rest when your ancestors had no choice but to push on. It might mean raising your children with tenderness and emotional presence, even when that wasn’t your experience. It could involve choosing a different partner, changing careers, or speaking up where there was once silence.

This work doesn’t mean blaming your family. It means holding compassion for what they went through, while also creating space for your own needs and growth. You can acknowledge the pain of the past while choosing not to carry it forward.

Reminders as you break the cycle:

• You are allowed to rest, feel, and heal

• You don’t have to repeat what you were taught

• Healing is not linear — it unfolds in layers

You are the cycle breaker. And that is sacred work.

Final Reflection: Reclaiming Your Story

You are not just the product of what happened to your family — you are also the author of what happens next. Reclaiming your story doesn’t mean erasing the past. It means understanding it, honouring it, and choosing how it shapes you going forward.

A simple practice:

• Take a moment to reflect on one belief, behaviour, or emotional pattern that may have been passed down to you.

• Ask yourself: Is this still serving me? Is it mine to carry?

• Consider what it might feel like to set it down.

Healing intergenerational trauma is an act of deep care — for yourself, for those who came before, and for those who will come after. The work is tender, brave, and worthy. And every step you take matters.

Therapy and Support

Healing from intergenerational trauma is rarely a solo journey. Working with a trauma-informed therapist can offer the space, tools, and guidance to begin making sense of what you’ve inherited. Therapy can help you understand your story, access compassion for yourself, and develop healthier ways of relating to others.

You may not have chosen the trauma, but you can choose to heal. And in doing so, you offer the next generation something new — something more grounded, more connected, and freer.

This healing work is slow and layered. It often requires patience, gentleness, and support. But it is possible. And it is deeply worth it.

If you resonate with any of what’s been shared here, you’re not alone. Whether you’re just beginning to explore your story or are deep in the work of healing, know that change is possible — and support is available.