What Is Intergenerational Trauma and What Does It Have To Do With Family Violence?

 



The ACT Community Services Website describes Intergenerational Trauma as:

When the original traumatic experience is transferred from parents to children, and then grandchildren and so on. This is thought to be a result of learnt behaviour and alternations to internal workings with biological changes in the body due to stress (see Trauma Poster on Epigenetics).


Intergenerational Trauma is a varied experience but it can also be a cycle created by Family Violence. For Instance A website called Duke University describes the experience as:

A mother who is struggling with her daughter's sexual abuse, might also have been sexually abused by her father, who, may have also been sexually abused by his father. The impact of generational trauma is significant.
When Family Violence and Intergenerational Trauma become one and the same it can be extremely damaging and people might not be aware of what that trauma looks like and how it becomes an ongoing cycle of dysfunction. The root cause of the dysfunction might not always be obvious but the way that the cycle continues can be very obvious especially to therapists and the victims that choose to break the cycle.

When it comes to Family Violence also being Intergenerational trauma the cycle goes like this Abused = Becomes Abuser =  Creates Victim = Victim Becomes Abused = Victim Becomes Abuser = New Victim and so on...
The cycle keeps going on like this. More and more people get raised in this dysfunction thinking it is normal and not knowing what a healthy family looks like until someone decides that they want to break the cycle.
For me, I was the scapegoat but my dreams and ambitions didn't fit in to the toxic narrative of my biological family. Initially I believed their beliefs about me until I started challenging them. Luckily it was the age of the internet and I did tonnes and tonnes of research, learning that I was not alone and that what I was brought up in not only wasn't ok but that I could be healthy.
Not all Family Violence is Intergenerational Trauma though. Sometimes Family Violence is isolated to one or two family members but when a person tells you they haven't got contact with any family members, it is likely they are a survivor of Intergenerational Trauma.



Bibliography

https://www.communityservices.act.gov.au/ocyfs/therapeutic-resources/understanding-intergenerational-trauma#:~:text=Intergenerational%20trauma%20is%20when%20the,see%20Trauma%20Poster%20on%20Epigenetics).
https://oie.duke.edu/inter-generational-trauma-6-ways-it-affects-families#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20a%20mother%20who,of%20generational%20trauma%20is%20significant.
https://therapeuticselfcare.com/?p=3001







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