Breaking the cycle of trauma: a legacy that transcends generations

In 2016, American author Colleen Hoover published her book It ends with us which in Spanish has been translated as break the circle . The novel, which topped the New York Times Bestseller list years after its publication, tells the story of Lily, a woman in an abusive relationship and, according to Hoover, is inspired by the her own mother’s life experience. Although the book revolves around Lily’s relationship with an abusive man, multiple references to her childhood and how Lily’s mother also lived trapped in an abusive marriage are read throughout the story.

The title could allude to Lily’s determination to heal her relationship and thus end the cycle of violence that has lasted for generations. However, by the end of the story, it is clear that she is making a promise to break the cycle not with the abuser but with her daughter. So that the family history of women who live in violent marital relationships ends with them, through their mother-daughter relationship.

Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel is an example of how trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. Violence within the couple is only one of the possible areas where this legacy of an emotional wound can occur, but sexual abuse, drug addiction, child abuse, among other events, can be the first kick of true intergenerational trauma.

It is a phenomenon that is often associated with disasters or events that affect a society, but can also occur on a family scale when one of the members of the group suffers some type of trauma during their life and may it continue to affect subsequent generations. . According to a publication from Duke University in the United States, intergenerational trauma is “a concept developed to help explain years of recurring challenges within a family”. In this sense, Cynthia Henríquez, psychologist and family therapist specializing in systemic and relational psychology, explains that “trauma can be understood as an injury and when we talk about intergenerational or transgenerational trauma, we are talking about trauma that transcends an individual and is transmitted through mandates, socialization, education or family paradigms and worldview”.

Although, as the specialist explains, socialization occupies a very important place when it comes to intergenerational trauma, research has shown that trauma suffered by a person can also be transmitted to their offspring through biology. Studies by researchers from the Center for Psychoactive Therapy and Trauma Studies at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have found that children of people who have had traumatic experiences have variations in their epigenetic markers, which function as a kind of companion to each DNA molecule and have the ability to turn certain genes on or off. And, in this way, Epigenetic markers that an individual inherits from previous generations can influence the development of certain inherited diseases or conditions. “The more a person experiences episodes of violence in childhood, the more the structure and functioning of the subject’s brain are likely to change. Right down to their DNA.” adds the psychologist.

However, Cynthia Henríquez explains that it is important to understand that, To speak of generational trauma is not to speak of determinism. “From the family, a genetic predisposition can be transmitted to younger generations,” explains the psychologist. But he specifies that this is not enough to trigger a situation of transgenerational trauma. The fact that a father or mother has suffered some type of trauma does not necessarily imply that it is passed on to their offspring, but it does mean that there is a predisposition in children to develop problems associated with that event. which do not directly affect them.

“In addition to this biological predisposition, the family that forms you, the healthcare system and the way of apprehending the world give it to you from their own prejudice”, adds Cynthia. But even when a person has suffered a trauma, it is not always explicitly passed on to other generations. What was conceived as a wound in a grandfather or a mother is often not transmitted as pain to children but rather as a belief or conviction about the world. And for this reason, it is not so easy to detect that what happens next is the consequence of a trauma experienced by another. “Many times, new generations don’t experience vicarious trauma, but rather embrace the paradigms that arise from trauma as absolute truths,” comments Cynthia.

The psychologist explains that, for example, a girl who has been socialized as part of a family where women have been sexually abused, even if she has not been personally abused, may behave from non-verbal codes or even using a narrative consistent with that of a victim of sexual violence.

But, in addition, the specialist adds that another of the elements that make transgenerational trauma difficult to detect is that, in subsequent generations, its manifestations can become completely different from those of the original victim. “If I understand the girl warrants in which it is established that men are dangerous or that I must never be alone with a man, which come from the absolute mistrust that the family learned because there was sexual abuse at the base, I could even jump to the opposite pole and display behaviors of excessive confidence, over-erotization and low ability to measure risk in the sexual sphere” explains the psychologist.

Although its own trauma originates in its own history, the transgenerational goes beyond what we can remember or even feel. And that’s one of the important variables to consider in dealing with it. “In your own trauma, you have the possibility of reaching the causes and the origins of this pain”, explains the psychologist. In these cases, by going to the root of this wound, it is possible to make the trauma cease to be determining in the person’s life and become part of their history. But in the case of intergenerational trauma, that initial pain may not exist, it may simply have been passed down as a truth, a dogma, or a belief about the world that we carry throughout our lives as some sort of program. mental. . For this reason, neuroplasticity occupies a key role when discussing the approach to intergenerational trauma.

Cynthia Henríquez explains that, thanks to the ability of this brain to generate new neural connections, it is possible to understand trauma not as something that affects us, it does not determine us. Even when there are effects on an individual’s epigenetics, transgenerational trauma requires a series of psychosocial factors that activate it. In this sense, it is a particular sensitivity but not a condemnation and, as the protagonist of It ends with usit is possible to end the cycle of trauma inherited for more than three generations.