Understanding Intergenerational Trauma and Its Effects

Researchers first began to explore intergenerational trauma after observing its effects on the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and Japanese Americans forced into internment camps during World War II.

This list doesn’t include all potential causes of trauma. But if your parents or grandparents experienced any adverse events, especially throughout childhood, the aftereffects may linger within the family dynamic.

Research suggests that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), typically defined as abuse, neglect, and parental mental health conditions, can have a profound effect on emotional, mental, and physical health, explains Giovanna Torres, MSW, LSWAIC, a therapist in the Seattle area.

Torres, who specializes in working with first-generation individuals to address intergenerational trauma through the use of relational and somatic therapy, goes on to say that traumatization can stem from abuse or neglect both in and out of the home.

“Historical context is everything,” she says. “You might not be someone who considers yourself a victim of trauma. But what is the history of your parents, grandparents, and relatives’ people, within the United States or abroad? Did they experience discrimination or abuse on a larger scale that impeded their well-being?”

It’s not always easy to recognize intergenerational trauma, since many of the signs also characterize mental health conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

What’s more, the signs and symptoms of trauma can also vary widely from person to person and family to family.

“Some people become so accustomed to living with the impact of generational trauma in a family that accepts it as ‘normal,’ the trauma becomes normalized and symptoms appear ‘normal’ to them,” says Canh Tran, LICSW, a trauma therapist in Seattle, WA.

“Our families, society, and culture shape our environment, so this is key,” says Tran. He goes on to explain that this normalization of trauma symptoms can lead you to begin accepting it as “normal” yourself.

Some common signs and symptoms might include:

• dissociation and depersonalization, or a sense of disconnection and detachment from your body and feelings
• emotional numbness, or difficulty experiencing and expressing emotions
• difficulty connecting with others, establishing trust, and forming relationships
• feelings of isolation and withdrawal
• feelings of shame, guilt, or low self-esteem
• a sense of helplessness or vulnerability
• difficulty establishing personal identity
• trouble regulating your mood and emotions
• a tendency to avoid certain people, places, or things
• substance use, especially to help manage mood or emotional symptoms
• nightmares
• intrusive thoughts
• a diminished sense of security and safety in everyday life
• feelings of anxiety and depression
• a heightened response to stress
• thoughts of suicide, death, or dying

Signs of traumatization can also show up for the members of your family who lived through the initial trauma. They might:

• have difficulty discussing the trauma, or deny it outright
• minimize the traumatic experience (“It wasn’t so bad. Other people had it worse.”)
• have trouble expressing emotions and communicating
• use alcohol and other substances to numb or cope with unwanted feelings
• raise their voice or become angry easily
• have either an overly harsh or mostly uninvolved parenting style

These patterns can appear in your own behavior, though you might not always consciously recognize these effects.

Examples to consider

Maybe you’ve always witnessed family members using alcohol to:

• navigate tense situations
• ease uncomfortable emotions
• destress after a difficult day

It’s only natural you might find yourself turning to alcohol for the same reasons, simply because your family modeled that behavior.

Or, perhaps no one in your family shares their feelings or shows love and approval. You might never learn how to share emotions and affection — but this might not feel unusual, since that’s what you learned growing up.

Maybe your parents remained distant or detached, even when you did try to show your love or earn their approval. As a result, you might:

• begin to feel unsafe expressing your feelings to others
• consistently fear rejection
• avoid forming attachments and becoming close to others

On the other hand, when you have some awareness of the impact of your family’s trauma, you might resolve to do things differently but end up erring on the side of overcompensation.

If you grew up in a household where you had little money for basic necessities, much less toys and outings, you might indulge your own child by:

• frequently taking them to restaurants
• going on expensive trips and vacations
• buying them everything they ask for (and plenty of things they don’t ask for)

Or perhaps your parents’ inability to express love felt so devastating that you constantly tell your partner and children how much you love them — to the point where it leaves them a little uncomfortable.

The key to understanding intergenerational trauma lies in the nature of trauma responses themselves.

When you experience a traumatic or stressful event, your brain and body work to protect you through one of four main responses:

• fight, or standing up to the threat
• flight, or fleeing from the threat
• freeze, or stopping in your tracks and waiting to determine the best response
• fawn, or attempting to soothe and appease the source of the threat

Repeated or ongoing exposure to trauma — whether that means you continue to face the same trauma, or different traumas again and again — can leave you “stuck” in this response. Your body wants you to get through the event safely, so it remains on guard for danger.

But this state of hypervigilance, or constant high alert for possible threats, can have some pretty big consequences. It can have a long lasting impact on your overall physical and mental health and well-being, for one. But it can also affect your very biology by triggering changes in the expression of certain genes.

The role of epigenetics

Research in a field known as epigenetics explores the ways these heritable changes to DNA affect the activity and function of your genes. These changes don’t alter the sequence of the nucleotides in your DNA. In other words, they don’t change the DNA molecule itself, but they can alter which genes activate and deactivate.

Where does the “intergenerational” aspect come in? Well, some of these changes don’t just modify your genes. They lie in your genetic code and shape the genes you eventually pass on to your children.

In short, you don’t have to experience any direct threat to your health and safety. Your genes carry the knowledge of what your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents lived through, regardless.

Other factors

Of course, other effects of trauma can also play a major role.

It helps to remember that people respond to trauma in different ways. They can then teach those responses, consciously or unconsciously, to their own children.

For instance, if your grandmother experienced abuse and neglect from one parent, she might have learned to:

• suppress her own needs and desires
• avoid drawing attention to herself
• do whatever she could to keep that parent happy
• apologize immediately when encountering disapproval from someone else

She might have passed on those behaviors and responses when she became a parent, whether her partner was abusive or not. Your mother, then, learned to avoid upsetting her father or asking for things she wanted. As you grew up, you learned similar behaviors from your mother.

Trauma can also affect how you communicate.

A parent who suppresses the memory of painful experiences by refusing to talk to them can inadvertently teach you to bottle up unwanted or distressing emotions. When you reach adulthood, you might have a hard time communicating your feelings or talking about unpleasant situations.

Here’s why hiding or brushing off your emotions generally doesn’t help.

Trauma, whether you experience it directly or vicariously, can show up in many areas of daily life.

According to Tran, you might:

• find it hard to get out of bed, no matter how much sleep you get
• have trouble sleeping, or be afraid to sleep, because you’re having nightmares
• notice your old ways of coping no longer work effectively
• use substances to numb discomfort and pain
• notice increased rage, anger, irritability, sadness, grief, and loneliness, when before you never really felt or processed emotions
• don’t feel anything at all because you’re so disconnected from yourself
• find yourself ruminating frequently on critical, demanding, and shaming thoughts
• experience physical symptoms like headaches, migraine, stomachaches, hot body temperature, and shakiness

As a result of these symptoms, you might begin to avoid your family and friends, have trouble at school or work, or find it difficult to even leave your house.

These effects can persist, but they might also subside and return over time. Eventually, they can begin to affect your day-to-day function, quality of life, and relationships with others.

“Relationships shape the quality of our lives. When our relationship with others and ourselves begin to disconnect and weaken to the point of isolation and withdrawal, this can be a sign to seek help,” Tran emphasizes.

Environmental and relational experiences in early childhood can affect lifelong learning, memory, emotions, and behavior. Epigenetic changes can also play a part in a number of health and mental health conditions, including:

• cancer
• heart disease
• diabetes
• autoimmune conditions
• anxiety
• depression
• substance use disorders
• schizophrenia

“Essentially, chronic or ongoing stress can change brain development and affect how the body responds to stress,” Tran says.

Once you begin to recognize the signs of intergenerational trauma in your own life and behavior, you might wonder what steps you can take to keep history from repeating itself.

Acknowledging the signs and symptoms is an important place to start. Once you name and accept these experiences, you can begin addressing them.

“It’s crucial to tend to emotional ailments just as you would a physical wound. The task can be daunting, but the outcome can offer a tremendous amount of relief,” Torres says.

If you’re working through intergenerational trauma, connecting with a mental health professional can have benefit.

A trauma-informed therapist can help you begin to heal by:

• listening to your experiences
• sharing insight into trauma responses
• offering guidance with identifying possible coping skills and sources of support

Here’s how to find the right therapist for you.

Therapy that doesn’t address intergenerational trauma directly can still teach helpful skills, including strategies for communicating, processing emotions, and navigating relationship challenges. But when therapy doesn’t explore your personal history, it may not prove as effective for healing trauma.

“A trauma-informed and resilience lens is crucial,” Tran emphasizes. “It’s moving from, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ to ‘What happened to you?’ to ‘How have you learned to survive?’ and eventually ‘What can we do to support your healing moving forward?'”

Beyond therapy

“Intergenerational trauma must also account for socio-environmental-political-cultural contexts such as racism, poverty, sexism, and xenophobia,” Tran says.

“Therapy is only one way, but not the only way to heal from the impacts and legacies of trauma,” he explains. “Reconnecting to your cultural wisdoms and knowledge is one step. What did your grandparents do to heal? What about your great-grandparents?”

He offers examples like:

• song
• dance and other movement
• storytelling, art, and writing
• religion and spirituality
• other healing methods like reiki, qi gong, acupuncture, bodywork, massage, and healing circles

Both Torres and Tran emphasize the importance of including trusted loved ones, support groups, or supportive professionals in your healing work.

For more insight and guidance on steps forward, Tran recommends:

• Legacy: Trauma, Story, and Indigenous Healing by Suzanne Methot
• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

You may not be able to rewrite your genes or change your past, but you can certainly take steps to address your personal response to trauma and begin to heal.

If you can navigate distressing and unwanted experiences in more productive ways, you can later share these important skills with any children you have.

Even if financial barriers keep you from accessing mental health support, you still have options, including:

• Open Path Collective
• DMHS: Deconstructing the Mental Health System, INC
• Free Black Therapy

In search of tips for finding the right culturally competent therapist? Our guide can help.

Crystal Raypole writes for Healthline and Psych Central. Her fields of interest include Japanese translation, cooking, natural sciences, sex positivity, and mental health, along with books, books, and more books. In particular, she’s committed to helping decrease stigma around mental health issues. She lives in Washington with her son and a lovably recalcitrant cat.