What do you know about generational trauma, and do you believe it exists?
What do you know about generational trauma, and do you believe it exists?
user
Gosh, it sounds like an interesting idea, and I’m not sure.  I can tell you a few things about some recent research on trauma and adversity, and ask if any of that sounds like it might be relevant.
assistant
Generational trauma is the idea that traumas can pass from parent to child, and the child of a deeply traumatized family will inherit that trauma even if the child isn't in the traumatic situation.
user
That sounds like an interesting idea.  The specific model I read about seemed to treat this idea of "passing the trauma down" as a very literal kind of genetic inheritance, where it actually gets encoded in the DNA of the children.  There is a strand of research in the medical field looking at the evidence for this, but the jury is still out.  I’m not sure that this is the kind of model you had in mind.
assistant
Do you believe this is a real thing? What does the scientific community say?
user