Should mental health professionals understand intergenerational trauma?

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Támara Hill, MS, NCC, CCTP, LPC is a licensed therapist and certified trauma professional who specializes in working with children and adolescents who suffer from mood disorders, emotional trauma, and disruptive behavioral disorders. Disclaimer: This is an independent blog and ACAMH may not necessarily hold the same views.

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I am motivated by the topic of trauma. This motivation led me to become a trauma therapist about 8 years ago. Of the 8 out of the 10 years I’ve been in the field of psychotherapy, I recognized a major need for real trauma therapists, especially for children and adolescents.

Although becoming a trauma therapist entails a license and certification as well as engagement in an approved training program, becoming a trauma therapist requires much more than this. It requires a deep interest in the emotional and psychological challenges of sufferers. It also includes an authentic connection to the client including knowledge, interest, love and compassion, and access to educational resources. Sadly, most people, including mental health therapists, struggle to understand what emotional and psychological trauma is, even though it affects about 26% of the United States child population and about 60% of adults. In the United Kingdom, an article published by the Independent stated that 4 systematic reviews of trauma-based studies showed only 0-22% of psychiatric patients were asked about a history of trauma. Another review showed that there were over 58,000 children identified as needing protection from abuse (a traumatic experience) in the UK in 2016. It’s a major public health concern (all over the world) that mental health professionals are becoming more aware of, but slowly.

Those who are aware of the importance of understanding traumatic stress and emotional trauma may not fully understand the topic of intergenerational trauma. We certainly need this to change.

I tend to define inter-generational trauma as a traumatic event that began years prior to the current generation and has impacted the ways in which individuals within a family understand, cope with, and heal from trauma. For example, the patriarch of a family may suffer from an untreated severe mental health disorder which causes him to engage in harmful behaviors toward his daughter. This daughter, having endured years of emotional and psychological abuse, now has her own family but has not been able to release herself (psychologically and emotionally) from the torture she endured. As a result, she begins to exhibit many of the same behaviors of the patriarch which leads to her own children exhibiting similar behaviors. These behaviors, including dysfunctional ways of coping, continue for generations. These unhealthy behaviors then become a “normal” way of raising children within the family.

Intergenerational trauma can negatively impact families as a result of:

  1. Unresolved emotions and thoughts about a traumatic event
  2. Negative repeated patterns of behavior including beliefs about parenting
  3. Untreated or poorly treated substance abuse or severe mental illness
  4. Poor parent-child relationships and emotional attachment
  5. Complicated personality traits or personality disorders
  6. Content attitude with the ways things are within the family

I’m sure you have heard of the families who hide sexual abuse for generations until someone decides, in the family tree, to end the secrecy and get real help. This is a common occurrence but something many clients tend to be ashamed of. In fact, it appears some mental health professionals may not know quite how to address it either. It has been my experience that it is easier for a therapist to allow the client to “guide” sessions instead of the therapist broaching uncomfortable topics of family trauma. Some of this avoidance is healthy, while some of it is not.

In addition, we must keep in mind that traumatic stress isn’t necessarily an inevitable consequence of a traumatic event itself. Traumatic stress is connected to how the individual processes and perceive the event and how they use their resources to cope. Trauma can result from any circumstance that outweighs your ability to cope. It is very subjective which is why we, as mental health professionals, must be careful not to imply trauma (even if the event would be traumatizing to us). This is a mistake I made as a beginning trauma therapist.

So how do you help a client or family suffering from generations of traumatic experiences? Awareness, education, and training.

Here are a few things to keep in mind about intergenerational trauma:

  1. Understand that intergenerational trauma almost always includes a loss of safety (emotional/psychological, physical, financial, etc).
  2. Be aware of the emotions your clients are expressing to you and be open to psychoanalyzing their reactions and the ways they discuss their emotions.
  3. Encourage your client to openly discuss (when ready) the loss they feel and why. You can eventually help them define and add meaning to their story.
  4. Help them understand that while you want to give them time to open up, you will not “stall” for time if the inter-generational trauma is the elephant in the room.
  5. Once the heavy processing involved in trauma work is over, lead your client to focus on designing a future far removed from their thoughts and feelings of the intergenerational trauma. They must understand that generational chaos can end with them.

We have so many lives that need us. We have so many callings in this field. It is up to us to offer our clients the support and care they so desperately seek. Becoming and ultimately feeling competent, knowledgeable, and ready is the first step toward offering our clients quality trauma-informed care.

Discussion

what seminal articles provide info on intergenerational trauma? Thank you!

Hi Sarah,
Thanks for your comment. I’m sad to say this but there aren’t a great number of research articles on this topic. However, a place to start might be The International Association of Trauma Professionals and the book It Didn’t Start With You by Wolynn. A quick Google search of the topic might also yield some results.

Take care

A wonderfully informative and helpful article … thank you!

Thank you so much Marion!!

Fantastic blog article. Very up to date and well informed . Hugely insightful for Therapists, and written by one who is clearly very self-aware and engages in healthy Reflective Practise. I appreciate the lesson of not instinctively applying trauma just because an event may be traumatising to us. It’s an easy mistake to make.
As a trauma-informed Holistic Therspist who has had the good fortune of hearing from and meeting some of the world’s foremost experts on trauma at this years International Trauma Recovery Summit, and hearing about transgenerational trauma from my father, it is refreshing to see this information on the web.
It would certainly seem to be a topic that requires urgent further research and wider discussion. As it’s effects are potentially far reaching. I can certainly see it in quite a number of families. Some so much so, that it becomes an unwelcome association with the family name under monikers such as the family ‘curse’; ‘that family has never been right – it goes back generations’; or less compassionate and more judgemental observations such as ‘what do you expect? Look at the parents’. As unkind as some of these assertions are, for those who are aware of Intergenerational trauma, it’s incredibly telling. Hopefully many families will benefit in future, and will be helped, as the knowledge of trauma and how it can be transgenerational, becomes more widely available and easily recognised and understood.
Thank you for your part in that.

Thank you for your article. I have been researching the subject from a central European view, specifically the effect of the Second World War on the victims and bystanders.
There is a lot of research in this field beginning with research of the children and grandchildren of holocaust victims.
Key authors that I would recommend;

Kellermann, Natan P. F. (2001). Transmission of Holocaust Trauma – An Integrative View. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes: Vol. 64, September, pp. 256-267.

van der Kolk, (1996) Traumatic Stress, The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society

Bar-On, D. Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press 1989.
Bar-On, D. Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press 1995.
Bar-On, D. The Indescribable and the Undiscussable: Reconstructing Human Discourse after Trauma. Budapest: Central European University Press 1998.

Thank you so much Louise!! I am humbled by your comment and glad we’re in this together.

Hey, Its great to see people talking about Trauma. Its great to see people talking full stop about these types of issues.

I love the idea that Language is the opposite effect of trauma. Learning to connect to those moments through talking or therapy can have a powerful effect in teaching someone the language of their own pain and the power of communicating within these moments. It did for me anyways.
My family used trauma as the basis of our healing. We used the book the body keeps the score and other self help books. But we recognised the trauma that had been passed down through both my mother and fathers side and the way it affected our household. Its allowed us to work through many complex and difficult issues within our family and the effect has been powerful. each one of us have grown considerably as people since and we have deepened the love we have for each other through this understanding. Thankfully it allowed us to mend a lot of old wounds both obvious and unseen.

keep up the great work. Get people talking and understanding and lets get rid of a lot of the pain from the past and open up a new world with this thinking..

Thank you Diogenes for your comment and shared resources.

Thanks for your comment Liam! We have so much work to do byt at least we recognize the work that needs done.

thank you Ms. Hill for helping me a grad student researching intergenerational trauma among the Native American population – better understand what it is. I’d like to see some more about this population.

This is a very well written and concise summary of a topic I intend to explore further. Thank you!

Hi Valerie,
You’re welcome! Such an important topic for Native Americans and all people of color.

Thank you Chrystal!!

I’m a veteran from the Vietnam era and an immigrant from the Caribbean. Which leaves me with different levels of generational trauma. My therapist introduced the term to me and I’m hooked on finding out as much as I can on this topic because I realized how much of the stuff I’m carrying emotionally I have no relation to, yet it has a deep hold on my psyche and that of my family. Thank you, great topic and good information.
Bloomfield, CT.

I am doing research on intergenerational trauma with tentative plans topresent a workshop with a mental health nonprofit. I am executive director of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, In God’s Corner: Where Mental Health and Faith Connect. I am also a certified peer specialist (CPS) in the state of Missouri and experienced childhood trauma. I will be interested to see if my research reveals that this trauma was somehow passed down in addition as well as feeling the effects of my trauma.

I am considering using some of the information in your article. Can I please have permission to do so? Let me know how you would like me to cite your work. Thank you!

This is me wanting to stop the trauma being passed down even more!

I’ve recently spoken out the truth about everything and now been disowned for doing so!

I’ve known for years we as a family haven’t been right and it’s affected me badly.

This is lovely to read as I can see this has been going on for many generations before me.

Just wish there was information on the web to help start my recovery!

Tamara:
Events in my life have led me to where I am. I am interested in generational trauma, PTSD and CPTSD. I am working through my own trauma. I wonder if I could speak to you about it, since I am interested in (at this late age) changing my professional and working with trauma. I understand how trauma affects people throughout their lives. I am lucky to be given the opportunity to want to turn my experiences into helping people. Let me know if we can speak or write.

Thank you for your post. I have noticed that your lens exclude Epigenetics influence of inter generational trauma. Is it on purpose or does your theoretical framework exclude its influence? I acknowledge that your role as therapist may force you to focus on solutions and therefore not the historical roots of the trauma. Would love some feedback.

Hi Tamara

I have been practicing and teaching family and organizational constellations work globally for a number of years and as you might know this approach addresses intergenerational patterns and inheritances. I appreciate your careful use of the word traumatic and often use the word significant instead. It seems to make a difference. I am hesitant to say much more although I work with a large number of therapists, coaches and organizations but your thoughtfulness around this subject is great and could lead to a larger discussion about origins and effects of unresolved events and their language.
Warm regards
Judy

Hallo Tamara thank you very much for an insightful piece of work.May I kindly have permission to cite you in my research on transgenerational trauma among children of war veterans in Africa.

Thank you, Tamara, for a piece which doesn’t just focus on social intergenerational trauma, ie where a social group experiences extended trauma (slavery, Holocaust, Covid), but also on familial intergenerational trauma, there is not enough of this on the internet. As this original post is a few years old now I wondered if you have any more up to date research on this matter. I’m a writer who focuses on family and would value any research you could point me toward.

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