Author Biography

Harley Thomas is following her passion for mental health care as a student at Utah State University. She plans on graduating with a double minor in Social Work and Psychology before continuing to graduate school. She loves literature, creating and viewing art, and caring for her plants in her free time.

This essay was composed in March 2023 and uses MLA documentation.

It is no secret that throughout a person’s life span, they will experience trauma at some level, from death, abuse, harm, general stressful events, and more. Life is unpredictable and, more often than not, incredibly distressing, but trauma and traumatic experiences can not only be felt by the individual present but can be passed down from generation to generation. Generational trauma, transgenerational or intergenerational trauma as it is sometimes known, is defined as “experienced by one person—it extends from one generation to the next” (Gillespie). Generational trauma can impact a generation’s potential indefinitely after the initial trauma in the form of risky behaviors, heightened mental illness, and even continued abuse against the next generation. This essay will explore the topic of how generational trauma affects each generation through the lens of the children of survivors of large-scale traumatic events, experiences of members of marginalized communities, and an exploration of clinical treatment of generational trauma.

It is proven that when a person experiences trauma, the generations following will feel its repercussions. For example, Brent Bezo, a doctoral psychology student who was living in Ukraine with his wife, noticed that the direct generations from the survivors of the “Holodomor, the mass starvation of millions of Soviet Ukrainians from 1932 to 1933” were seemingly different from others. A study of 45 people from multiple generations, including a 1st gen, 2nd gen, and 3rd gen person from each family, was conducted to find if each generation had experienced similar symptoms (DeAngelis).  What  Bezo found was that

[p]eople spontaneously shared what they saw as transgenerational impacts from that time, including risky health behaviors, anxiety, and shame, food hoarding, overeating, authoritarian parenting styles, high emotional neediness on the part of parents and low community trust and cohesiveness—what many described as living in “survival mode.” (DeAngelis).

These symptoms are common among every generation he surveyed, including those three or more generations removed from the initial trauma of mass starvation. Borros suggests that this could come from socialization, as parents teach their children not to trust strangers or the world, teaching those around them to continue the habits that they or their grandparents had to develop to survive the large traumatic event. Similar symptoms have also been observed in Holocaust survivors and their children. A study by Cambridge explains that this is “secondary traumatization,” which means the effects or manifestation of a parent’s trauma, advertently or accidentally, impacts the child as they grow (Scharf). The trauma can be passed through a variety of means, including authoritarian parenting, seeing episodes of mental illness, disconnection to the child, or abuse against younger generations as a coping mechanism (Scharf).

Research on generational trauma is limited to the small number of groups who have experienced large-scale and specific trauma and who are both able and willing to be a part of such studies. While research is also limited by unintentional bias without comparison to large population samples, it still gives strong proof of this phenomenon and, more importantly, the symptoms of future generations. However, generational trauma is not exclusive to groups of large-scale traumatic event survivors; it can also affect those who have less specific large-scale traumatic events, such as members of marginalized communities.

For those who experience generational trauma, sometimes it is not from a specific event or time but from a lifetime of experiences. This is prevalent in the lives of marginalized and historically oppressed groups of people, such as Black Americans, immigrants, and Native Americans. It is evident to contemporary audiences how much generational trauma affects modern members of these communities, as shown by the reaction to the films Everything, Everywhere All at Once and Encanto. Both films center around generational trauma and how family dynamics can irreversibly harm both caretaker and child. Both films have elicited recognition and acclaim from those who are a part of the communities they center around, showing the frightening number of people who resonate with the themes. In the comment section of the YouTube video, “Encanto & Recovering from Generational Trauma,” the comments are full of stories of people who have gone through similar things. One commenter stated, “I also experienced abuse from my mom. My mom also experienced abuse so she in turn abused me…I also experienced racism at school and at my job but I felt that my experience wasn’t nearly as bad as my grandma’s experience who went through segregation so I tried not to complain about it” (Black Girl Lavish). People of color and other marginalized communities endure not only the effects of past racism and current racism but trauma from parents or their community as those communities have changed due to a whole existence of trauma. In the study “Battling Something Bigger Than Me”: A Phenomenological Investigation of Generational Trauma in African American Women,” researchers followed eight black women to find if they had similar symptoms, experiences, and other manifestations of generational and historical trauma. They found trauma exists because of racism, misogyny, and parental trauma, and this is all interconnected. One participant explains, “I noticed that I don’t communicate with my mother, because I don’t wanna communicate with her, out of fear. Like when I made certain decisions growing up that I knew weren’t the right decisions, even like getting into the abusive relationship I did, I didn’t wanna tell her about the first incident” (Petition). How is one supposed to grow and break the cycle of generational trauma when it is built into every moment of one’s individual and generational history? One participant states, “I kind of get a fake feeling when I’m around my family, because … Like it is harmony. Yet there’s a lot of stuff that isn’t talked about” (Petition). Generational trauma remains an ever-present problem, so how does one begin to understand their traumas and how to end the cycle?

While it may be easy to look at an issue as extensive and severe as generational trauma and feel discouraged or even apathetic about its existence, we must continue to attack this problem. Generational trauma remains an aspect of psychology that is grossly under-researched.  “Unlike more individualized trauma, there are little-to-no assessments or empirical studies demonstrating how GT [generational trauma] should be taught to counselors-in-training.” (Petition). Although it may seem trivial to some, as, of course, our life experiences will shape us, and the way guardians treat us will have a lasting effect on a person’s life, those who suffer under generational trauma have an unfair disadvantage even before they are born.

Generational trauma cannot be discussed without mentioning epigenetics, a new and under-researched field of study that examines the theory of traumas being transferred on X-related chromosomes. While this field still needs further exploration of its theories, it is important in the conversation about treating generational traumas. As it is with most mental illnesses, treatment of the symptoms is a good short-term solution, but if we are striving to help heal an individual as much as possible, we must find the root causes and treat those. There have been studies proving that stress has a physical reaction on those who experience it, even if they experience the stress hormones from the mother in the womb. One of the most impactful ideas of epigenetics is that early life stressors result in an imbalance of glycogen and other chemicals that can create these life programs that can extend into adulthood. These early life changes in their ”programming” can cause problems regulating energy metabolism, emotional behavior, and the HPA axis (Maccari). These all are significant components of whether or not an individual will develop an age-related illness or mental illness later in life, as studied in the article “Early-life Experiences and the Development of Adult Diseases with a Focus on Mental Illness: The Human Birth Theory.” While epigenetics is still a developing field, and some aspects remain untested,  it is important to recognize how it may affect clients. Still, the most important aspects of treating generational trauma are the willingness to unlearn harmful trauma and triggers from past generations and creating loving and open communications with each generation.

Generational trauma is a large and complex issue that this paper cannot hope to cover in its entirety. It is still very experimental, especially with its connections to epigenetics and treatments of the root causes. Generational trauma can be challenging to study because, by definition, it requires a very long time to study in its entirety. That being said, It is still incredibly important to research and understand one’s trauma. In situations of large-scale traumatic events or even lifetimes of trauma stacked on top of one another, The only way to break the cycle and to heal not only you but future generations is to approach oneself and history with kindness and courage.

Works Cited

Black Girl Lavish. Comment on “Encanto & Recovering from Generational Trauma.” YouTube, uploaded by Ben DeHart,  Jan 3, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pckwbvaWKvM&t=189s

DeAngelis, Tori. “The Legacy of Trauma.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Feb. 2019, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/02/legacy-trauma.

Gillespie, Claire. “Generational Trauma Might Explain Your Anxiety and Depression.” Health, Health, 13 Mar. 2023, https://www.health.com/condition/ptsd/generational-trauma.

Maccari, Stefania, et al. “Early-Life Experiences and the Development of Adult Diseases with a Focus on Mental Illness: The Human Birth Theory.” Neuroscience, vol. 342, 2017, pp. 232–251, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2016.05.042.

Petion, Ashlei R., et al. “‘Battling Something Bigger than Me’: A Phenomenological Investigation of Generational Trauma in African American Women.” Journal of Counseling and Development, vol. 101, no. 1, 2022, pp. 69–83, https://doi.org/10.1002/jcad.12454.

Scharf, Miri. “Long-term Effects of Trauma: Psychosocial Functioning of the Second and Third Generation of Holocaust Survivors.” Development and Psychopathology, vol. 19, no. 2, 2007, pp. 603-622.