Intergenerational trauma has existed forever and ever, yet gained a lot of (very necessary) momentum with the publishing of books like It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolyn in 2017. Soon thereafter, intergenerational trauma became a trending therapy topic on Instagram. While other books on intergenerational trauma exist and therapists had a foundation in this type of work, Wolyn’s work is particularly insightful, as it speaks to the topic on a cellular level. For example, Wolyn discusses how even if we never knew an ancestor who died in the Holocaust and maybe never even were told this story, it still affects our emotional and physical health more than we could ever imagine.
Please allow me to offer you some examples, some from others’ work, and some from my work with my clients. Let’s start with the Holocaust example—with 23 popular academic studies on intergenerational trauma published between 2000–2017. In almost all, intergenerational effects were significant specifically in the mother’s lineage, and much more significant if both parents or grandparents were survivors. Heightened baseline cortisol levels exist in the children and grandchildren of survivors and are likely to pass through for generations thereafter.
Again, most profound is how intergenerational trauma affects us on a cellular level. Parental PTSD showed effects on DNA methylation in specific gene segments. Then, from a mental health perspective, if survivor one suffered from even moderate mental health challenges, attachment issues and high-conflict families would add to even more of an effect on one’s cortisol metabolism. If you’d like more details, I enjoyed this easy-to-read study from the European Journal of Traumatology (Dashorst P, Mooren TM, Kleber RJ, de Jong PJ, Huntjens RJC).
Another example of intergenerational trauma is the potential harmful effects of racism and systematic oppression for Black folks. As we know—200+ years of slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings are just a few of the components of how the United States has screwed African Americans. Now, this results in economic disparity and mass incarceration of Black men, but on a deeper level, these traumas have created wounds that are carried in the bodies of descendants.
On top of the example we learned from above, regarding changes in gene segments, African Americans are shown to experience increased prenatal stress due to their mother’s experiences of racism. Recent studies have even linked maternal exposure to microaggressions with higher risks of premature birth and developmental delays in infants—again, a physical response tied to historical trauma. While storytelling is a major component of remembering the strength and resiliency of Black ancestry—and this is an amazing cultural strength—a reiteration of these stories may also remind individuals of their ancestors’ trauma, which can increase cortisol levels. On an observable level, African Americans are disproportionately prone to mistrust of institutions like law enforcement, which makes full sense given the mass incarceration of Black people. This more modern phenomenon mirrors slavery, further perpetuating a connection between young Black people and their ancestors—again remembering remarkable strength, but also leaving a physiological marker.
If you’d like to learn more, there are many studies on intergenerational trauma relative to African American people, including this study from The Delaware Journal for Public Health (Scott-Jones G, Kamara M). Another great read, which offers a deep dive into survival patterns as a result of trauma, pulling from studies relative to epigenetics, public health, and psychology, is Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, by Dr. Joy DeGruy.
Overall, intergenerational trauma, which also works in conjunction with epigenetics, looks like this: Epigenetics counteracts the idea that genes are stagnant from birth. While we grow up, chemical marks occur that show the degree to which a gene is exposed—a collection of which becomes an epigenome. Experiences during our childhood rearrange the epigenetic marks and how they affect gene expression, and then our behavior. Good childhood experiences, like supportive relationships, can have a positive effect on our epigenome, while negative influences like familial conflict can have a negative effect. An epigenetic signature can be permanent or temporary, if we use strategies to support creating stronger brains by reducing stress and perpetuating responsive relationships.