How to Break the Cycle of Generational Trauma: Expert Q&A

Generational trauma is trauma that’s passed down from parents to children through the generations. It’s also called intergenerational trauma, transgenerational trauma, inherited trauma, and historical trauma.

To unpack generational trauma and its effects on our relationships, we spoke with Dr. Sona Kaur, DClinPsy, a clinical psychologist at the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, the UK.

She’s also founder of Serenity Psychology and Serenity Children’s Home, a residential home for children and young people with behavioral and emotional difficulties. As the daughter of South Asian immigrants, she finds her own experiences with generational trauma inform her work with patients.

What drew you to helping people with generational trauma?

My education encouraged me to reflect a lot on my own beginnings and how that impacts me as a practitioner. That was one of my first journeys into really looking into intergenerational trauma. That’s when I first understood it and started to embed myself into it.

I could start to see the multi-layered impact. I’m from a South Asian community and I follow Sikh as my faith, so that was what my thesis was based on.

During that journey, I became quite interested in exploring intergenerational trauma — the longstanding impact it has and its complexities. I also did a bit of research with undocumented migrants. It showed me that trauma itself is prevalent, but also intergenerational trauma.

How would you define generational trauma?

The idea is that the psychological and emotional impacts of trauma have been passed on from one generation to another. So let’s say, for example, a trauma experienced by our parents or our grandparents or even our earlier ancestors that slowly trickles down into the future generations.

This trauma can impact the way we feel and think, how we might behave and respond to stress, even though we might have not experienced the trauma firsthand. It’s the transmission of that trauma which is slowly passed down in our families.

Can you share a specific example of generational trauma?

I think about my own experiences, and it takes me all the way back to the partition of India in 1947. I think of the trauma of migration when a lot of Sikh and South Asian families had to move. Millions of people were torn apart because of the violence during that time. That led to my grandparents moving from Pakistan, being forced into the area of India.

I think that forced migration and the loss that they experienced really shaped their parenting styles and their emotional resilience for future generations. It’s resulted in being very hyper-vigilant and suppressing emotions.

My father also tells me stories of a lot of racism he experienced in the 1950s and ’60s in the UK. I think that has affected how we talk about problems in our household.

When emotions arise that we might label negative or difficult, we try to suppress them because [we’re] already quite suppressed as people due to the racism. It then creates symptoms of perfectionism because they’ve been othered so much that there’s an idea of “I must be the best.”

For me as an individual, I’m somebody who’s often named as a workaholic. I work quite a lot and quite fast-paced.

There’s this idea of “We can’t rest.” It’s kind of seen as laziness. If we dare stop, there’s a fear we might be left behind.

Are there any specific groups of people who tend to experience the most generational trauma?

I think everyone does in their own ways. What that looks like is very different for each individual. There are extreme examples like the trauma experienced by Holocaust survivors, but really, it’s about any past trauma and how it’s passed down.

What does the research show about how generational trauma is passed down genetically?

With the example of Holocaust, there’s been research to show that survivors may pass down anxiety and higher levels of cortisol to their children.

Some researchers talk about the idea that generational trauma can be switched on and off with stressful events. But even without that (or without the direct exposure of the trauma), people can still experience a state of anxiety and stress that gets passed down.

I think things like levels of cortisol and a sense of hypervigilance do get carried down holistically. If we look at our minds and bodies, if we’ve had parents that have been in that state of anxiety, they’re going to pass it down.

How can someone break the cycle of generational trauma?

I think we have to recognize it and try to name those patterns. If we can recognize it, then we’ve got a better space for challenging the survival-based behaviors that we’re doing.

So if your parents grew up in hardship, their emphasis might be financial security over mental health. Then we’ve got to challenge those behaviors by thinking, “Is this belief helping or harming me in my current life?”

From there, it’s a matter of allowing ourselves to process those emotions, rather than suppressing them.

Coming back to the example of families that might suppress emotion, I think part of that healing process would be acknowledging the actual sadness or the grief or the fear instead of avoiding it.

There are lots of resources. We can access things nowadays like cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), and other somatic therapies. These things are there for us to repair relational trauma.

There’s also the process of trying to reparent ourselves. This means giving ourselves the emotional nurturing that we didn’t ever receive from our parents. And we can start to change patterns for our own children if we catch ourselves replicating them.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share about healing generational trauma?

It’s important to remember that it’s not something that any one person is solely responsible for.

It can feel like, “I must do something to make this huge change.” Actually, it’s quite a collective thing. We’re creating a ripple effect for all the future generations as well. I think that can be really encouraging for people.

The work requires a lot of courage, a lot of reflection, and a willingness to do what our previous ancestors couldn’t. You can think of it as a privilege.

It will bring up a lot of emotions, but I think that’s part of the whole healing journey — to accept all of it and be open to all of it. I think if we can do that, then we have a better chance of becoming more resilient and helping future generations.