Generational Trauma: Causes, Signs and How to Heal

The saying, “Hurt people hurt people,” albeit very simplistic, is a short way of summing up generational trauma.

When you’re affected by something that happened to your parents, because they’re affected by something that happened to their parents, and so on, you potentially have yourself a sad recipe for generational trauma. Until that pattern is recognized and healed, it can go on for future generations, such as your children and their children. The legacy of trauma has quite the staying power.

But generational trauma can be stopped in its tracks through prevention and healing. This article will explore this type of trauma, how it’s passed on, and what can cause it.

What is Generational Trauma?

Generational trauma (also called intergenerational trauma, transgenerational trauma, or historical trauma) is when trauma is passed down from one family member to another family member.

The trauma experienced by the first person or people in the “chain” can be emotional or psychological and, if not healed, can lead to health problems and detrimental effects on the next generation’s health and well-being.

​​What Causes Generational Trauma?

Generational trauma is passed down in complex and subtle ways through attachment relationships, within family and community groups, and even through epigenetic changes.

Signs of Generational Trauma

People who experience generational trauma might experience signs and symptoms of depersonalization, a state of mind in which a person feels like they don’t know themselves and feel far away from themselves and the external world. They may also experience emotional numbness, depression and anxiety, deficient life skills, a lack of self‐worth, and Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The American Psychological Association (APA) also lists the following as reactions to intergenerational trauma:

• Shame

• Increased anxiety and guilt

• A heightened sense of vulnerability and helplessness

• Low self-esteem

• Depression

• Suicidality

• Substance abuse

• Dissociation

• Hypervigilance

• Intrusive thoughts

• Difficulty with relationships and attachment to others

• Difficulty in regulating aggression

• Extreme reactivity to stress

Types of Generational Trauma

Here are some of the types of trauma that can be experienced and passed down:

Personal Trauma

Personal trauma, such as domestic violence or sexual abuse, can cause generational trauma.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are events that occur in childhood from 0 to 17 that are potentially traumatic for children or adolescents. Examples of ACEs are a child experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect; a child witnessing violence in the home or community; a child experiencing a family member attempting or dying by suicide; parental separation or divorce; or a child living with a household member who’s been in prison. However, this is not exclusive to parental figures. Role models, church figures, and other individuals can impact ACE.

Children’s risk for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and their potential for resilience may be connected to their parents’ or role models’ early child-rearing experiences and how those experiences are carried forward into their own interactions with children.

Put simply, parents and role models impact the probability of ACE, rather than ensuring ACE. Whether a child goes through an ACE can depend on how their parents or role models were raised because those parenting styles might be carried over. For example, a mother who grew up in an abusive home may have learned not to show her emotions. As a result, her emotional distance can impact her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on.

Individuals who have been through multiple ACEs may have PTSD symptoms, which is an under-recognized risk when it comes to the intergenerational transmission of ACEs.

According to Indiana University Health: “Typically, the parents of a child who experiences ACEs faced similar abuse or neglect when they were children, too. This effectively creates a vicious cycle that can last generations.”

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, Founder of the Center for Youth Wellness and current Surgeon General of California, said in a 2021 statement when talking about COVID-19 and children’s mental health: “A robust body of literature demonstrates that ACEs are highly prevalent, and strongly associated with poor childhood and adult health, mental health, behavioral and social outcomes and demonstrate a pattern of high rates of intergenerational transmission.”

Here’s a guide on what to do if you’re worried about your child’s mental health.

Collective Trauma

Collective trauma can be caused by war or genocide, and research has shown that children of war veterans displayed increased psychological suffering if their fathers’ war exposure intensity was high.

An article titled ‘The Legacy of Trauma’, published by the American Psychological Association, reports that one of the first articles to note the presence of the intergenerational effects of trauma appeared in 1966, when Canadian psychiatrist Vivian M. Rakoff, MD, and colleagues documented high rates of psychological distress among children of Holocaust survivors.

Since then, researchers have been evaluating the appearance of anxiety, depression, and PTSD in trauma survivors and their offspring, with Holocaust survivors and their children being the most widely studied over the longest time.

As well as Holocaust survivors, further discussions have taken place about the trauma-informed impact of other historical events such as colonization, slavery, and displacement trauma in many cultures, including First Nations and Indigenous communities, African Americans, Australian Aboriginal people, and Maori people of New Zealand.

Racism

A review published by The American Journal of Psychiatry asserts that structural racism and cumulative trauma are key drivers of the intergenerational transmission of depression.

Structural racism includes familial housing discrimination and lack of access to mental health treatment, while cumulative trauma, in this case, consists of exposure to hate crimes via cross-burnings, parental incarceration, and ACEs.

Furthermore, the review states that African-American adults with depression in America “rate their symptoms as more severe, have a longer course of illness, and experience more depression-associated disability” than non-Hispanic White Americans.

Not only does structural racism affect Black Americans, but the review says that it can affect many other populations, such as LGBTQ populations, Indigenous Peoples, Latinx, women, and people with low incomes.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics — the study of how a human’s behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect how their genes work — is another possible cause of generational trauma.

Interestingly, not only can trauma affect one psychologically but also physiologically. Trauma can change a person’s DNA structure and gene expression, which can then be passed down to their biological children. This can continue for generations and generations and even shape entire cultures.

One study discovered that children of Holocaust survivors presented changes in stress hormones, indicating a difference in their genetic makeup. This implies that traumatic experiences experienced by parents and grandparents can affect children before they’re even born. Even after a threat has passed and survivors have resettled in a safe country, the body doesn’t return to an un‐stressed state. This response causes physical and psychological problems for future generations.

Dealing with Generational Trauma

While you can’t turn the clock back and erase the trauma you’ve experienced, you can try to prevent it from being passed down to subsequent generations. And if you’re dealing with the effects of trauma experienced by your parents or caregivers, you can also help stop trauma’s insidious journey. Here are some ways that trauma can be healed.

Break the Cycle

“Prevention is the most effective intervention approach for intergenerational transmission of trauma,” according to a 2019 meta-analysis published on PubMed.

Specifically, prevention may be achieved with trauma-specific interventions for adults and attachment-focused interventions within families.

One such intervention is the Generational Trauma Card (GTC), which can be used within family systems to help promote awareness of generational trauma and its impact on health.

A mix of simple text and illustrated pictures is used on the card to show the generational transfer of trauma from adolescent parent to child. Trauma is represented on the front of the card as a heavy rock that a person carries around with them after a significant event, while the back of the GTC lists definitions of trauma and toxic stress along with strategies to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma transfer.

In a study where the GTC was used, adolescent parent participants were comfortable learning about generational trauma via the graphic card and suggested that it might lead to positive behavior change.

In her TED Talk, Breaking the Cycle of Generational Trauma, Candice Jones, a board-certified physician practicing as a general pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, says, “Instead of passing down hurt, pass down healing.” To heal, we should follow the three Rs: recognize, build resilience, and restore.

1. Recognize

“Try to recognize the symptoms of trauma that you’re experiencing.” Jones says you should “ask yourself whether something bad has happened to you and whether you find yourself fearful, sad, numb, hopeless, or depressed. Are you experiencing panic and anxiety and finding yourself irritable or angry? Do you find it hard to complete the tasks at hand, like your focus has gone? Are you self-medicating your pain? These are symptoms of trauma. Recognize and then ask for help.”

2. Build Resilience

Jones says you can “build resilience by surrounding yourself with systems of support. Having healthy relationships can provide the safe stable, nurturing connections, and positive experiences that your brain and body need to reset. Finding a sense of purpose and practicing gratitude can also help.”

3. Restore

By prioritizing your physical health, you’re also prioritizing your mental health. “Restore the brain and body through healing practices,” Jones says. “Eat nutritional meals, drink lots of water, eat lots of fruit and vegetables, get adequate amounts of sleep, and regular exercise. Practice mindfulness by getting out in nature: take a walk, sit on a park bench and chat with a friend, and remember to breathe deeply.”

When used together, Jones says that the three R’s work in unison to regulate a dysfunctional stress response system and enhance the brain and body’s healing powers.

Therapy

Not everyone who experiences a traumatic event will require therapy, but if it starts affecting your daily life or if the signs and symptoms above seem familiar, it might be time to find a therapist.

Therapy can help you think more positively about yourself, other people, and the world. Mental health professionals can also help you learn coping mechanisms so that you can manage your symptoms better.

When it comes to interventions for traumatized adults and families, different approaches can be undertaken for therapeutic treatment, such as:

• Multi-Family Therapy (MFT)

• Trauma-focused individual therapy for parents

• Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)

• Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET)

• Brief Eclectic Psychotherapy (BEPP)

• Preverbal EMDR for children

If you want to know more about the different types of therapies — click here.

Build Your Resilience with the Help of Therapy

If you remember, Candice Jones said that one of the three Rs of breaking the generational trauma cycle is resilience. Building resilience is a gradual journey that can be done by improving your mental health, and one aspect of that, if needed, is therapy.