Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): A Gentle Introduction
March 24, 2026
Have you ever reacted to something, a raised voice, a moment of conflict, a feeling of being left out, and thought: where did that come from?
Sometimes our most intense emotional responses do not fully belong to the moment we’re in. They belong to something older. Something inherited.
Intergenerational trauma is the way that unprocessed pain from one generation gets passed down to the next. Through parenting styles, emotional patterns, nervous system responses, and the stories families tell, or refuse to tell, about what happened to them.
You did not live through the original wound. But your body, your relationships, and your emotional reactions may be carrying its weight anyway.
What Is Intergenerational Trauma and Where Does the Term Come From?
Intergenerational trauma, also called transgenerational or inherited trauma, refers to the transmission of trauma responses across generations. When a deeply painful experience is not fully processed by the person who lived through it, the effects ripple forward into how they parent, relate, and respond to the world. Their children absorb those patterns. So do their children’s children.
It is not a metaphor. Research shows that trauma leaves measurable marks on the nervous system, on attachment patterns, and on the body itself.
In Canada, this conversation carries particular weight. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented that over 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families and placed in residential schools between the 1870s and 1990s. The effects of that forced separation continue to move through families and communities today.
But inherited trauma is not limited to one community. Immigrant families carry the echoes of war, displacement, and survival. Children of Holocaust survivors show measurably higher rates of anxiety and hypervigilance than control groups. Families shaped by addiction, poverty, or domestic violence often pass down patterns of fear and hypercontrol, not out of malice, but because those responses were once necessary to survive.
How Do You Know If You Might Be Carrying Inherited Trauma?
Inherited trauma rarely announces itself clearly. It shows up quietly, as patterns that feel deeply personal but somehow don’t fully make sense given your own life history.
You might be carrying intergenerational trauma if you notice:
- Anxiety or hypervigilance that feels disproportionate to your current circumstances
- A deep sense of shame or unworthiness with no clear source
- Difficulty trusting others, even people who have given you no real reason not to
- A tendency to shut down emotionally under stress
- Intense fear of abandonment or conflict
- Repeating relationship dynamics that mirror what you witnessed growing up
- A feeling of responsibility for managing the emotions of people around you
- A pervasive sense that things are not safe, even when you are objectively okay
These are not character flaws. They are adaptations. At some point, they helped someone in your family survive. Recognizing them as inherited patterns is the first step toward changing them.
How Does Trauma Actually Get Passed From One Generation to the Next?
Trauma travels through families in several interconnected ways.
Through parenting and attachment, a parent who experienced significant trauma may struggle to regulate their own emotions. This makes it harder to help a child regulate theirs. Children learn how to respond to the world by watching how their caregivers respond. If the adults around them are chronically anxious, emotionally unavailable, or unpredictably reactive, children internalize those patterns as normal.
Through the nervous system, trauma dysregulates the stress response. A parent living in a chronic state of fight, flight, or freeze passes that energy into the home environment. Children’s nervous systems attune to their caregivers’. Hypervigilance can become a baseline that feels like just “how I am.”
Through silence. Sometimes what families do not talk about causes the most harm. Secrets, subjects that were never allowed to be named, losses that were never mourned. Children fill those silences with their own fear and confusion.
Through epigenetics. Emerging research suggests that trauma may leave chemical marks on genes that influence how stress responses are expressed across generations. This field is still developing, but the evidence is growing.
What Does Healing Intergenerational Trauma Actually Look Like?
Healing inherited trauma is not about blaming your parents, or their parents. It is about understanding the threads you have been handed and choosing, deliberately, what to do with them.
That work is real work. And it is possible.
Noticing What You Have Inherited
The first step is awareness. Start paying attention to which emotional reactions feel bigger than the moment calls for. Which patterns keep appearing in your relationships. Which fears feel ancient rather than current.
Simply naming this, “this might not be fully mine,” creates a small but meaningful space between you and the response.
Meeting Yourself With Curiosity Instead of Judgment
Dr. Kristin Neff’s research on self-compassion shows that meeting difficult emotions with kindness rather than criticism measurably reduces anxiety and builds resilience. When old patterns surface, asking “where did this come from?” tends to work better than “what is wrong with me?”
Reconnecting With Community and Story
Trauma isolates. Healing tends to happen in relationship. This might look like sharing family history with someone you trust, engaging with cultural traditions that were lost or suppressed, or finding community with others who understand what you carry.
For Indigenous communities across Canada, land-based healing and cultural reclamation have been shown to meaningfully support wellbeing and restore resilience that trauma tried to sever.
Working With a Trauma-Informed Therapist
Some patterns are too deeply embedded to untangle on your own. A therapist trained in trauma-informed approaches can help you trace inherited patterns back to their origins, process emotions that were never given room, and build a genuinely different way of relating to yourself and others.
Approaches like EMDR, EFT, somatic therapy, and attachment-based therapy are particularly effective for this kind of work.
What People Often Forget About Intergenerational Trauma
The same channels that carry trauma also carry resilience.
The determination that helped your grandparents survive hardship lives in you. The love that held families together through loss. The creativity, the humour, the stubbornness that allowed your lineage to continue.
Healing intergenerational trauma is not about erasing the past. It is about choosing which parts of what you inherited to carry forward, and which patterns, finally, get to stop with you.
When to Reach Out for Support
Consider connecting with a therapist if:
- You recognize patterns in yourself that mirror a parent or grandparent’s struggles
- You feel anxiety, shame, or fear that seems disconnected from your own life experience
- You keep repeating relationship dynamics you swore you would never repeat
- You are a parent and you find yourself worrying about what you might be passing on
- You want to understand yourself more deeply, not just manage symptoms
Reaching out is not a sign the trauma won. It is a sign you are choosing something different.
Trauma-Informed Therapy in Hamilton, Ontario
At Statera Therapy, we work with clients in Hamilton and the surrounding area who are navigating the long shadow of inherited pain. Our therapists take a trauma-informed approach, meaning we understand that your emotional patterns make sense given what you have experienced, and what those before you experienced.
You do not have to untangle this alone. And you do not have to keep passing it forward.
A free 15-minute discovery call is a good place to start. Come as you are.
Common Questions About Intergenerational Trauma
Is intergenerational trauma a real psychological condition?
Yes. While it is not listed as a standalone diagnosis, intergenerational trauma is a well-documented phenomenon studied extensively in trauma research, epigenetics, and attachment theory. Its effects are real and measurable.
Can intergenerational trauma actually be healed?
Yes. With the right support, people can and do break generational cycles. Therapy, particularly approaches rooted in attachment theory and trauma-informed care, helps people process inherited patterns and build genuinely different ways of relating to themselves and others.
What kind of therapy works best for intergenerational trauma?
Trauma-informed approaches like EFT, EMDR, somatic therapy, and attachment-based therapy are commonly used. The most important factor is working with a therapist who understands how trauma shapes the nervous system and attachment patterns over time.
How do I know if my struggles are related to something inherited?
A useful starting point is noticing patterns. Emotional reactions that feel bigger than the moment, relationship dynamics that repeat, fears that don’t connect clearly to your own life experience. A therapist can help you explore whether those patterns might have roots beyond your personal history.