Generational trauma

I have written extensively about ancestral trauma—the deep-seated, many-generations old traumas that we all carry a distant memory of from the dawn of patriarchy. I’ve also written about the inevitable consequences of clearing trauma—experiencing rage at having had to endure that traumatic experience. This week I encountered the nexus of the two: the rage that […]

I’ve likened generational trauma to the white spaces on old maps marked ‘Here be dragons’. We suspect something’s out there but we’re not exactly sure what. My experience is that when you consciously understand a trauma it can no longer remain unconscious. It must surface for healing—for the simple reason that you’ve brought it into consciousness. This […]

In his award-winning documentary Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain visited Koreatown in Los Angeles and spoke to several self-confessed ‘bad Koreans’ who had defied family expectations about their lifestyles. All of them referred to the han (or haan) as a family or communal pressure to meet expectations, such as becoming doctors, lawyers, or accountants. Korea’s supposedly […]

Genealogy is big business. We all know that family member constantly immersed in online research or rushing off to visit old battlegrounds or musty parish records. Over the years, the facts pile up in old ring-binders or sprawling digital archives. Few of these researchers are aware of the difference between thinking about the past and […]

If you set out upon the hero’s journey of uncovering generational trauma, one of the obstacles you will encounter is a partial, or even entirely missing, language around trauma. This missing language may be yours or that of your fellow wayfarers—quite possibly both. Creating that language—the dictionary, the grammar, a facility with both technical and […]

Over the course of recognising and releasing my own generational trauma, I’ve noticed various principles. These principles are repeatable, consistent, and constant. You can rely on them as much as any scientific principle. I’m convinced there is science behind them, we just haven’t deconstructed it yet. In Living with ghosts, I’ve documented some of my […]

On the surface, generational trauma seems weird and unfathomable. Its manifestations can border on the supernatural. Yet there is increasingly solid science behind our understanding of inherited trauma. Here are a few of the key strands. Some of the science behind generational trauma is hard science—laboratory science—while some of it is more conceptual. Epigenetic inheritance […]

There’s a principle in writing known as the Five W’s—who, what, where, when, and why. The Five W’s are sometimes known as ‘the reporter’s questions’. They’re commonly used in journalism, research, police investigation, and fictional writing. I’ve found that the Five W’s can also be used as a formula for unpicking trauma—particularly generational trauma. Trauma […]

When it comes to generational trauma, photographs are interesting beasties. They are sometimes the only link we have with an old family member. Through both their presence and their absence, photographs cast light on the past. One of the ways is through the light—or lack of it—in the subjects’ eyes. Absent photographs How can the […]

In the early 18th century, natural philosopher Émilie du Châtelet proposed the Law of Conservation of Energy. Wikipedia: “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another.” Generational trauma obeys the Law of Conservation of Energy because it cannot be destroyed. It can only […]