Intergenerational, transgenerational or simply generational trauma refers to the transmission of trauma between generations of a family. Generational trauma occurs through biological, environmental, psychological, and social means. Individuals who experienced adverse childhood experiences growing up, or who survived historical disasters or traumas, may pass the effects of those traumas on to their children or grandchildren, through their genes, their behaviour, or both, leaving the next generation susceptible to anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and other emotional and mental health concerns.

Research

This is an area very much in the early stages of research and the mechanisms are still being studied. Some evidence suggests that generational trauma can happen in the uterus—for example, a fetus being exposed to chemicals involved in maternal stress that impact future development. People who have experienced significant trauma may be more likely to have diminished attachment skills, have less patience as parents, and generally communicate messages and lessons to their children that are rooted in stress or anxiety. 

Some of our evidence comes from animal research. For example, when mice were conditioned in the lab to fear a certain smell, the succeeding two generations displayed a high sensitivity to the same smell, as well as increased receptors for detecting it. (For more information, read this Scientific American article https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fearful-memories-passed-down/)

The Nurses’ Health Study, (more information here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurses%27_Health_Study) is a large-scale, long-term research project exploring risk factors for chronic disease in women. In this study, the children of women who’d experienced physical, sexual, or verbal abuse as children were 1.7 times more likely to experience depression, and 2.5 times more likely to develop chronic depression, than children whose mothers had not experienced such abuse. In a study such as this, it is unclear whether epigenetic changes (i.e. via the genes) or, by contrast, parenting style, might have contributed to the effect.

How might the effects of trauma be passed down the generations? 

1. Behavioural and emotional modelling: Children learn how to cope with stress, trauma, and emotions from their parents. If parents use unhealthy coping strategies, such as emotional withdrawal, anger, or substance abuse, children may adopt these behaviours as well.
2. Inherited stress responses: Research has shown that trauma can affect genetic expression through a phenomenon known as epigenetics. This means that trauma can leave a biological mark on a person’s DNA, which may be passed down to subsequent generations.
3. Unspoken family norms: Often, trauma remains unspoken within families, creating an environment where children are expected to suppress emotions. Silence around traumatic events, like domestic violence or childhood abuse, can perpetuate unhealthy cycles in the family dynamic.
4. Social and economic conditions: Generational trauma is often linked to social and economic challenges that persist across generations. For example, poverty, discrimination, or lack of education can create a continuous cycle of hardship that exacerbates the impact of trauma. Examples of this include collective trauma experienced by descendants of the Atlantic slave trade; segregation and Jim Crow laws in the United States, apartheid in South Africa, Jewish Holocaust survivors and other members of the Jewish community at the time, by the Indigenos People of Canada during the Canadian Indian residential school system and in Australia, the Stolen Generations and other hardships inflicted on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

Gabor Maté and generational trauma

Gabor Maté, Hungarian/Canadian physician, has written and spoken at length about the effects of generational trauma. He cites the persecution of Canada’s Indigenous people and the ensuing addiction, illness and suicide, as well as the legacy of racism and slavery in the US. 

Maté had first-hand experience of generational trauma as a Jew in Nazi-occupied Hungary. He was born in January 1944 and in May of that year, the deportation of Hungary’s Jews to Auschwitz began. By the end of the Holocaust, 565,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered, Maté’s maternal grandparents among them. When he was 11 months old, his mother sent him with a stranger to be cared for by his aunt. “I’m 11 months of age and, to save my life – literally to save my life – she hands me to a total stranger, Christian woman in the streets, and says, ‘Please take this baby… to some relatives who are in hiding, because I can’t keep him alive.’”

For more information, see this article: .”https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/12/the-trauma-doctor-gabor-mate-on-happiness-hope-and-how-to-heal-our-deepest-wounds   and his book The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté & Daniel Maté and The Wisdom of Trauma by Gabor Maté 

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See also: The Impact of a Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Families, Setting boundaries in a dysfunctional family