Historical/ Intergenerational Trauma

Many folks who experience childhood trauma recognize cycles of intergenerational trauma in their family systems. I'm especially interested in working with individuals who have a strong desire to explore these patterns and make meaningful changes in their own lives.

Most of my clients are doing the emotional and psychological work of their parents, grandparents and beyond. In other words, our healing what the healing our lineage has needed. Families pass down the good and the bad. I compare this to physical belongings, like heirlooms or unopened boxes. When the "boxes" contain habits, patterns or traits that have caused harm to or are no longer serving my clients, I support them to sort that stuff out in exchange for what heals, helps and brings happiness

Through my work at an LGBTQ-focused community center, I offered therapy to community members, many of whom were dealing with complex trauma and a history of dysfunctional family relationships.

Trauma can occur from a single experience, or from multiple negative experiences over a lifetime. Childhood abuse or neglect, sexual assaults, and frightening events can be traumatic. So too can hostile or conflicted family relationships, being bullied, and so much more. Healing trauma does not mean forgetting, but it does mean that the trauma and the nervous system responses you may have will no longer control you. You deserve to have your power, safety, and freedom back.

We know that trauma travels through linages and communities. I'd welcome working together to notice how that might be showing up for you and in your life. While I would love for an event to change the whole world, it seems like smaller, more individual change is how it is going to happen. Let's work on healing the trauma of your past while knowing that it will impact the future.

Years of grappling with trauma has shown me something beautiful. Yes, we inherit post-traumatic stress. But we inherit post-traumatic growth too! We can rewire the ways our wise adaptive minds read information. Soothe the fear. Reeducate the vigilance. Keep potential trauma from becoming embedded. Trauma comes to our bodies through relationship, but healing does too. When we reshape how we safely show up in world, we heal & reveal our full Selves & pave the way for healthy whole-hearted children

I understand that the trauma experienced by previous generations can have a profound impact on your mental health today. My approach to therapy acknowledges the interconnectedness of historical events and personal well-being, especially when dealing with issues stemming from significant cultural or historical oppression such as colonization, slavery, or forced displacement. I work with you to explore your family history, understand how generational trauma affects you & develop coping strategies.

Growing up in an immigrant household, I witnessed how harmful communication patterns, beliefs, and behaviors can be passed down through generations. Many of us strive to differentiate ourselves from these patterns to prevent them from affecting our own children. Taking time for self-reflection and awareness isn't selfish; it's an act of self-compassion. By doing so, we can choose to pass on family heirlooms of love and resilience rather than the burdens of family trauma.

Inner child work may help with those experiencing intergenerational trauma. Inner child work helps explore unprocessed childhood emotions and feelings that currently impact one’s life and understanding, managing, and/or reducing triggers. One desire for inner child work may be to identify wounded areas and/or unmet needs of the child, learn to advocate, protect, or show compassion for the child, create a safe enough space to invite the child to play, and integrate the child with the adult self.

Utilizing Internal Family Systems therapy and Brainspotting, I have witnessed profound transformations in my clients as they navigate the complex layers of inherited pain and resilience. Grounded in compassion and empathy, I facilitate a safe and nurturing space where individuals can explore the depths of their inner worlds with courage and curiosity.

More new information is emerging about the effects of trauma on health & wellbeing. PTSD and CPTSD (complex - PTSD due to years of abuse/neglect) is when we feel hi-jacked by our senses/body connecting us back to past events that were (or seemed) life threatening. These experiences can be from Domestic abuse, events/accidents related to the lifestyle of substance abuse, and from chronic traumatic/neglectful childhood experiences. There is hope for recovery. It is time for you to heal.

Most people think about trauma as a war or a near death experience, but in therapy we know that trauma is present when we see some specific symptoms that are usually results of an embodied, neuro-biological experience from a time where our brains and bodies were overwhelmed. In those moments it can seem like we don’t have access to the more philosophical and emotionally intelligent parts of ourselves.

Many, due to a number of factors, are haunted by the historical and intergenerational traumas of our ancestors. We can heal from these through a number of ways. The more we ignore it, in ourselves and our own communities, the more we delay our healing.

I have extensive training and experience in working with historic, intergenerational, and complex trauma through my time providing mental health services for NARA, NW and Wolf Pack Consulting and Therapeutic Services. As a relationship therapist, I understand how impactful historical/intergenterational trauma can be on a relationship system and focus much of the work on helping the couple/family identify this trauma and create strategies to minimize it's impact.

For many of us, particularly those of us who are members of oppressed groups, the trauma we have experienced in this lifetime is only a piece of the puzzle. Our ancestors and the pain and unhealed wounds of their suffering can also be in our nervous systems, minds, bodies, and spirits affecting our psychological and physical health. I will always hold this truth in our work together and if you are interested we can explore those historical elements together.

Life experiences impact all aspects of our being, including our psychology, physiology and how we interact with others and ourselves. Because life experiences can affect us in such layered ways, the impacts of such life experiences can also be passed down in an intergenerational manner through interpersonal learning and biology. At times this may be obvious - like seeing a particular challenge, like violence, running through a family. Other times it’s more subtle, like realizing the different attachment styles that shape the way we react to the world. Sometimes we may even find ourselves afraid of something yet we don’t know why. Or we keep resulting to a coping strategy that does not serve us, yet we feel unable to do otherwise. Through a multi-modal approach that infuses relational, experiential and body-oriented approaches I help clients overcome intergenerational trauma, create healthy boundaries, increase resilience, reclaim their sense of self and create the lives they wish to lead.