The burgeoning research on epigenetics and the connection to intergenerational trauma, is a game changer for many individuals in their quest for finding peace and healing from trauma symptoms. In fact, researchers have located specific genetic markers that reflect alterations at the DNA-level, for inherited trauma.

This research and its subsequent role in the therapy room, underscores the importance of language. Words are powerful! How we describe these are defined by Mark Wolynn, author of It Didn’t Start with You, as Core Language: “When fragments of past trauma play out inside us, these fragments leave behind clues in the form of emotionally charged words and sentences that often lead us back to unresolved traumas” (Wolynn, 2016). Patterns that, although developmentally adaptive for survival, often create problems in the present.

The good news is that we are not destined to carry on the ancestral trauma legacy. The work with a skilled therapist to uncover family history, themes and ‘unfinished business’ in the family line, can serve as a guide post for how one can begin the process of detaching from family legacies.

You can start this work on your own through building a genogram, a type of family tree used to map out behavioral patterns and medical trends in a family line:

Using a white board or a poster board, think through your family stories and what you know firsthand, map out what you know about your family’s history on topics such as mental health, death losses and other traumatic events, such as a natural disaster, poverty or assault. Assign a color marker, or a shape to these features. In session, I often have clients bring in their drafts and we build on it together. It can be a wonderful and even game-changing addition to your healing process!