TIRCIA · General public
Can we inherit our family's wounds?
What we really know about the transmission of trauma across generations, and how to break free
By Marie-Agnès Thulliez · Author · Publishing Director7-minute read
An anxiety that seems to come from nowhere, a heavy silence around a grandparent, a fear shared by several members of the family: many people wonder whether they might be carrying wounds that belong to someone else.
It is a legitimate question. Research offers answers that are partly solid and partly still uncertain. This article sorts one from the other.
What are we talking about?
We speak of the intergenerational transmission of trauma when the effects of an event experienced by a parent or grandparent are found in their descendants, who did not live through it themselves. The phenomenon was first described in the children of Holocaust survivors, then in the descendants of people who had known war, exile, genocide or family violence.
There are two main ways of explaining this transmission. One is well established: relationships. The other is still debated: biology.
What is well established: transmission through relationships
A parent carrying untreated trauma often lives on high alert, with emotions that are hard to regulate, memories that keep coming back and a need to avoid certain subjects. Without meaning to, this can weigh on family life:
- an atmosphere of tension or hypervigilance, in which the child senses danger without knowing where it comes from;
- a less available parent, absorbed in their own suffering;
- silences and secrets around the family's history, which leave the child to fill the gaps with their imagination;
- the repetition of learnt patterns, for example in the way anger or conflict is handled.
A meta-analysis bringing together individual data from 12 studies and 1,249 parents shows that, on average, the higher a parent's post-traumatic stress symptoms, the higher their parenting stress; this is an association, and a cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be demonstrated. The authors draw an encouraging lead from it: reducing these symptoms could help ease that stress (Meijer et al., 2025).
None of this is inevitable. Many parents who have lived through trauma raise children who are doing well. A large synthesis of 32 studies (4,418 participants) in fact found no sign of transmitted trauma among children of Holocaust survivors drawn from the general population: difficulties appear mainly in studies of people who were already seeking help, that is, in clinical samples (van IJzendoorn et al., 2003).
What remains to be confirmed: epigenetics
We often hear that trauma is "written into our genes" and passed on that way. The reality is more nuanced. Epigenetics studies the way the environment changes the activity of genes without altering the DNA sequence, that is, the "text" of the genes.
A 2023 review brought together 22 publications from 19 human studies. They provide indications of epigenetic differences in the children of parents exposed to trauma, but the authors describe the evidence as preliminary: the studies are small, often rely on memories reported after the fact, cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship, and are unable to separate the effect of biology from that of the shared family environment. The findings are more robust in animals than in humans (Zhou and Ryan, 2023).
In other words, this is a serious and fascinating line of research, but nothing today allows us to state that a trauma is permanently written into our biological inheritance.
Caution with ready-made explanations
Some approaches promise to find the "hidden cause" of a person's suffering in the family tree: an ancestor, an anniversary date, a buried secret. They can feed personal reflection; their hypotheses have yet to be evaluated by scientific studies.
Be particularly wary of anyone who claims to know, on your behalf, what ancestors you never knew went through, or who pushes you to break off contact with your family when that is not your own decision. Stepping back can sometimes be necessary to protect yourself, but that choice is yours to make. Your story deserves to be explored with respect, at your own pace, with a trained professional.
What helps to break the chain
- Recognising what comes from the family's history, without blaming your parents or yourself: the aim is to understand, and blame can be left aside.
- Putting things into words: when possible and without forcing it, asking your family about its history, while respecting what each person is ready to share. Understanding where certain silences come from can already bring relief.
- Seeking support from a psychologist or psychotherapist trained in trauma. EMDR therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapies help to process your own painful memories; family therapies help to work on relationships.
- Taking care of yourself as a parent: healing your own trauma is also a way of caring for your children.
To find out more: What is trauma? and Understanding your emotions.
Need help now?
Suicidal thoughts: contact a crisis line such as 988 (US/Canada), Samaritans 116 123 (UK and Ireland), or find a local helpline at findahelpline.com. In France: 3114, free and confidential, 24/7.
Immediate danger: call your local emergency number (999 in the UK, 911 in North America, 112 in the EU).
Victim support: contact your local victim support services (in France, 116 006, free, every day).
Key points
- The effects of a trauma can be felt by the children and grandchildren of the person who lived through it.
- Transmission through relationships (family atmosphere, availability, silences) is well established.
- Biological transmission, through epigenetics, remains a hypothesis yet to be confirmed in humans.
- Be wary of ready-made explanations that claim to find the cause of your suffering in an ancestor.
- Healing your own trauma also helps to protect the next generation.
References
- Meijer, L. et al. (2025) 'Post-traumatic stress disorder, trauma and parenting stress: an individual participant data meta-analysis', European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 16(1), 2538907. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2025.2538907.
- van IJzendoorn, M.H., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M.J. and Sagi-Schwartz, A. (2003) 'Are children of Holocaust survivors less well-adapted? A meta-analytic investigation of secondary traumatization', Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16(5), pp. 459–469. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025706427300.
- Zhou, A. and Ryan, J. (2023) 'Biological embedding of early-life adversity and a scoping review of the evidence for intergenerational epigenetic transmission of stress and trauma in humans', Genes, 14(8), 1639. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14081639.
This article offers general guidance, up to date at the date of publication. It is no substitute for the advice of a doctor, who alone can make a diagnosis, or for support from a psychologist or psychotherapist.
