Self Understanding
Emotional Inheritance
August 23, 2023
— CHRISTINE SPARACINO
Galit writes about the trauma that is unprocessed by the generations that precede us (our parents, grandparents, great grandparents), and how that trauma manifests in our lives. She calls it “the legacy of trauma,” something we inherit. It is also called the “intergenerational transmission of trauma.” Galit writes, “Every family carries some history of trauma. Every trauma is held within a family in a unique way and leaves its emotional mark on those who are yet to be born.”
In my training to become a psychologist, my program focused on Family Systems Theory. One part of the theory that I never forgot was the idea that families have rules, roles, and secrets. There are spoken and unspoken rules that everyone in the family is expected to follow. Each family member is assigned a role to fulfill, and families contain secrets. Most often these secrets are unspoken within the family, something that may not even be known by all the family members, but is like a strong current running beneath the foundation of the family system.
It is a common belief that if something bad happens to us, and we “deal” with it and we don’t take it out on our children, then we break the cycle. For instance, take alcohol addiction in a family. If a man’s father was an alcoholic and he starts his own family, he may decide that he will not drink alcohol, believing that he is breaking the cycle of addiction and trauma in the family. However, what is often true is that unless we deal with the dynamics of that initial trauma and heal from it, the dynamics remain alive in the generations that follow.
It reminds me of the saying “There is only one way – to go through.” Often, we want to go around a difficulty, around a feeling, around the distress, but the only way to the other side and the only way to not pass these traumas on is to go through. To move through the distress, to process the feelings, to do the repair work.
Galit provides multiple examples throughout her book that family secrets continue to be carried by generations and show up in the lives of the unsuspecting family member. She says “One significant reason why people come to therapy is to search for unknown truths about themselves. That investigation starts with a wish to know who we truly are and who our parents were, and it always includes the dread of knowing.” When we develop insight and awareness about ourselves, about our feelings and why we make the decisions we do and behave like we do, we have the chance to experience freedom in our lives. This freedom means we are able to do something different than what we’ve done in the past.
This book will get you thinking about patterns in your family and what the generations before you experienced and worked through. As she ends the book, Galit leaves us with hope. Not all is grim and dark. The work we do in therapy, the resilience and the healing we experience, can also be transmitted to the generations that follow us. Our children and grandchildren will benefit from the resolution of our trauma and the resilience that grows.
