Season Two, Episode Nine: Bringing Trauma Home—Intergenerational Trauma and Interpersonal Dynamics

Peace, Love, and Psychology

In this fourth episode on the topic of trauma, we shift from discussing the impact of trauma exposure on individuals to a discussion of how it affects families and couples. First, we discuss the phenomenon of intergenerational trauma, in which the negative consequences of exposure are passed from the generation directly involved to subsequent generations. There are two classic mechanisms for the transmission of this kind of suffering: it is passed through family lore, the stories and legends that families tell about their origins, and it is passed through the modeling of behaviors that represent survival strategies and attitudes formed during exposure to traumatic events. Over the past two decades, there has been growth in research into intergenerational trauma. A significant portion of this research has focused on two generational events: the European Holocaust during World War Two and the attack on America on September 11, 2001. Research data have highlighted that trauma patterns are transmitted not only through narrative and behavioral modes but have also caused changes to the DNA of those exposed that can then be passed along to the children of survivors.

We then discuss how trauma impacts couples within the same generation. We explore how early family models of relationship and communication can affect the way an individual exposed to trauma may handle their symptoms in ways that can cause their close partner to also suffer negative outcomes. Both positive and negative early family models of communication can limit the options a survivor of traumatic exposure feels they have to address their symptoms within their partnership.
We focus on unfortunate patterns of dysfunction that often occur within two particular examples of partnership by examining how trauma symptoms can be expressed in couples where one partner had been exposed to trauma through combat deployment and in couples where one partner had been exposed to childhood sexual assault. Although a person can not heal their partner’s symptoms, couples can commit to working together to facilitate healing and to learning communication skills in order to decrease the chances of them triggering and reinjuring each other.

In any couple affected by the symptoms of traumatic exposure, there is always the hope of recovery, healing, and growth once the partners acknowledge what is happening and begin to address the problem together.

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