#34: Healing Intergenerational Trauma in Relationships
Maybe this feels familiar.
You’ve done the hard part. You moved. You settled. You figured out the public transport, the word for “receipt,” and which oat milk works best in your morning coffee. On paper, it looks like you’re thriving.
But there is a part of you that knows something stirs beneath the surface.
Maybe it’s a quiet Sunday. You walk through a local market, the food is beautiful, the pace is slow, and yet, there’s a sudden ache.
You wish you were sitting in your best friend’s kitchen, laughing over something ridiculous while she tops up your coffee without asking. It’s not about the market. It’s about the space between where you are and where you feel known.
What Is Intergenerational Trauma?
Intergenerational trauma is an emotional and psychological weight that often predates our own lived experience. It may begin with the traumatic events our ancestors endured, such as war, sexual abuse, colonisation, forced displacement, child abuse, or persecution. It can ripple forward across generations, quietly shaping the emotional landscape of our relationships.
Epigenetics: How Our Ancestors' Stories Live On
There’s a growing body of research, drawing on epigenetic mechanisms, attachment theory, and family systems, that helps us understand how trauma moves through generations.
Sometimes, it’s through the ways our caregivers modelled their responses to stress. Other times, the trauma is held more quietly, in the nervous system, in the unspoken grief of paternal and maternal stress, as well as inherited patterns of fear or survival.
Recent discoveries have found that trauma can alter gene expression, a process known as epigenetic change, which may influence how we respond to the world. When left unacknowledged, these patterns often pass on, silently shaping the emotional landscape of subsequent generations.
Intergenerational Effects on our Relationships
It shows up in how we relate, retreat, reach for closeness, or brace for conflict.
The legacy of traumatic experiences can shape our earliest attachments, the way we communicate, how we regulate big feelings, and how safe we feel in connection.
From a Gestalt therapy lens, the imprint of psychological trauma often plays out in the present moment in patterns of avoidance, emotional distance, or intense reactivity that were never truly ours to begin with.
Whether through anxious attachment, struggles with emotional regulation, or the repetition of old parenting styles, these inherited responses can quietly shape the fabric of our relationships.
But the good news, the body and our bonds can learn something new. With trauma-informed care, compassionate presence, and space to slow down, it becomes possible to soften these patterns and choose something different.
Attachment Wounds That Echo Through Time
Perhaps you’ve felt it: the sense that closeness comes with a cost, or that love is something you must earn.
When families have lived through traumatic experiences, the imprint is often felt in the ways we attach, withdraw, or hold ourselves in relationships. This is a legacy of survival.
Intergenerational trauma can quietly shape our attachment styles. What may have once been protective in previous generations, such as emotional distance, anxious closeness, or inconsistency, becomes a pattern we continue without realising. These are not just habits. They are inherited ways of seeking safety.
At Hue Therapy, we gently explore how these early imprints affect present-day connections. And we do so with care, because healing begins with understanding and without blame.
Communication Patterns Rooted in Survival
Sometimes the loudest things in a family are the things never said. Silence, withdrawal, and emotional shutdown can be symptoms of trauma transmission. If your voice feels caught in your throat or conflict feels unsafe, it might make sense in the context of your family history.
When a family member has experienced forms of psychological trauma, communication patterns often shift to protect, conceal, or endure. Generations later, those patterns can remain. It shows up in the way we avoid certain topics, in our fear of being misunderstood, or in how we misread others’ intentions.
These are not character flaws. They are adaptations. We can create space to relearn communication from a place of groundedness and choice.
Identity, Self-Worth & the Inherited Inner Critic
Sometimes the most painful part of trauma isn’t what happened, it’s the story we internalised about ourselves because of it.
Families impacted by historical trauma often pass down more than survival. They pass down shame, low self-esteem, and the quiet belief that we are too much or not enough.
You might recognise this in:
A harsh inner voice that mimics family dynamics
Struggles with self-worth or a fragile sense of identity
Feeling disconnected from your own life or unsure where you belong
Through Gestalt’s focus on bodily awareness, we create space to meet these inherited beliefs with compassion and begin to write a different story.
The Emotional Fallout: Anxiety, Shame, and Hypervigilance
You find yourself overthinking every word, scanning for signs of disapproval, or struggling to trust that things are okay, even when they are. Perhaps, without knowing why, your body is always braced for something to go wrong. Feeling like you’re constantly scanning for danger, even in safe moments.
Van der Kolk reminds us that “the body keeps the score.”
Trauma, especially when unprocessed, lives in the nervous system, influencing stress responses, emotional regulation, and even physical health outcomes like heart disease or chronic tension.
You might notice:
Heightened reactivity or emotional flooding
Persistent anxiety, hypervigilance, or emotional numbing
A sense of shame that lingers, even when life feels “okay”
From a Gestalt lens, we don’t just talk about these patterns; we feel them, notice them, and explore what else becomes possible in the moment.
Intimacy as a Risk: The Legacy of Trust Issues
Some responses don’t feel like choices; they feel like reflexes.
Perhaps you’ve noticed it, the way closeness stirs something unexpected. A partner reaches for you, and your body tenses. You long to feel safe in love, yet part of you still flinches, pulls away, or clings a little tighter than you'd like.
This is how intergenerational trauma can live in the present moment. An inherited whisper that says, love isn’t safe, connection might cost you, or you have to be perfect to be loved.
When trust has been ruptured in previous generations, closeness can feel confusing. Intimacy might feel too much or not enough. You might find yourself pulling away just as things get serious, or anxiously clinging out of fear of abandonment.
These patterns often stem from trauma that hasn’t been named or processed. The effects of trauma may not have begun with you, but they can live in the stories you carry about love, safety, and worthiness.
Through therapy, we gently untangle these threads. And we remember: intimacy isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence.
Breaking the Cycle: Can We Truly Shift the Pattern?
Yes. And it begins in the smallest of moments.
The field of trauma research shows us that healing is possible. The intergenerational transmission of trauma effects doesn’t have to be your endpoint. With the right support, it can become the place where a new story begins.
At Hue Therapy, we work with individuals and couples using trauma-informed care, body-based practices, and integrative psychotherapy to shift long-held patterns. We explore coping strategies, support nervous system regulation, and nurture the conditions for relational healing.
Healing is not about forgetting the past. It’s about meeting it, so you can choose how to move forward.
If this speaks to you…
I invite you to reach out.
Whether you’re navigating the effects of multigenerational trauma, feeling the weight of your family history, or simply curious about what your body and story might hold, we hold a space for curiosity and healing.
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