A person’s mental state is not influenced solely by their personal experiences. Sometimes their fears, anxieties, or relationships are shaped by traumatic events that occurred long before they were born. Georgia’s history encompasses many such collective and unspoken traumatic experiences.
How does this burden of the past affect the mental well-being of subsequent generations? What role do biological mechanisms and the family environment play in this process, and how important is it for an individual to become aware of and cope with the impact of intergenerational trauma? Psychiatrist and psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist Maka Areshidze spoke with us about these topics.
How can the traumatic experience of previous generations be reflected in a patient’s current mental state? Given Georgia’s recent history, where the experiences of war, displacement, and severe social conditions remained unspoken in many families, what signs might indicate that a patient’s anxiety and fears are linked precisely to this past?
A patient’s mental state may also be connected to the traumatic experience of a previous generation. However, this does not mean that a parent’s trauma is transmitted to the child in a direct and unaltered form. Its influence can manifest through the parent’s emotional state, upbringing, and family relationships. A person grows up in a family, and sometimes their life is influenced even by what happened before their birth.
In Georgia, different generations have lived through numerous difficult events — Soviet repressions, civil conflict, the wars in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region, displacement, the hardships of the 1990s, and the 2008 war. Some families had to cope with one loss after another.
After a war or severe loss, a parent may experience an expectation of danger for years. For a family that lost its home in Abkhazia, this often also meant separation from relatives, the disruption of familiar life, and an uncertain future. The hardships of the 1990s may have left a fear that food or money would not be enough again. After such experiences, some people find it difficult to believe that today they can live a relatively peaceful life.
This fear may also transfer to the relationship with the child, expressing itself in excessive warnings, overcontrol, difficulty with separation, or a constant feeling of bad expectations. The child might not know the family history well, but can still feel this tension and grow up in anticipation of danger themselves. Later, they may also find it difficult to start an independent life, thinking that by doing so they are leaving the parent alone.
When speaking with a patient, we might be prompted to consider this possible influence by a intense fear of losing a loved one or being separated from them, a constant desire to check on relatives’ safety, or an exaggerated sense of responsibility for family members’ well-being. It is important to understand how these feelings relate to the patient’s family history and upbringing experience.
It should also be noted that none of these manifestations are caused solely by intergenerational traumatic influence.
Studies conducted in Georgia describe the long-term impact of war and displacement on mental health. However, this does not mean that the patient’s anxiety today is necessarily explained by the parent’s past experience. A parent’s traumatic experience does not mean that the child will inevitably develop a mental disorder. Thus, it is important to evaluate the patient’s personal experience and current circumstances as well — what they went through themselves and what troubles them now. Family history is an important guide, but each person’s experience needs to be listened to individually.
To what extent can the influence of traumatic experience be transmitted to subsequent generations through biological mechanisms, and where is the line between biological inheritance and family-psychological influence?
Traumatic experience can alter the body’s response to stress and leave a long-lasting biological trace, but this does not mean that such changes are inevitably passed on to the child by inheritance.
For example, during pregnancy, strong or prolonged maternal stress can affect fetal development through hormones and the placenta. After birth, the child’s stress response is shaped also by how they are cared for and what daily relationships in the family are like. This experience can also cause biological changes, though this is a process distinct from hereditary transmission.
This is precisely where epigenetics is interesting — the mechanisms through which the environment influences gene activity without changing the DNA sequence. Animal studies have shown both epigenetic changes related to parental care and, in individual cases, the transmission of influence to subsequent generations through germ cells. In humans, confirming this is much more difficult.
For example, changes in stress hormones and epigenetic regulation of certain genes have been found in Holocaust survivors and their children. However, from these data, we cannot say how they were formed: through inheritance, during pregnancy, or through subsequent life experience.
Therefore, the difference between biological inheritance and family-psychological influence is not only in whether we see a change in the body — the main thing is how this change arose.
For example, family fear and stress can affect a child’s physical health and the body’s response to stress, but this change is caused not by genetics, but by an unfavorable family environment.
Today, the epigenetic transmission of trauma effects through germ cells (transgenerational) in humans is not yet convincingly confirmed. A parent’s past may hold an important place in a child’s life, but it does not predetermine their future.
From the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis, how can the unspoken experience of a previous generation affect a person’s self-perception and mental state? How do you distinguish this influence from difficulties stemming from the patient’s personal experience?
According to Lacanian psychoanalysis, a person is born into a family that already has its own history, fears, losses, and sometimes experiences that are not spoken about.
Lacan attaches special importance to language and family relationships. Our self-perception is not formed solely by personal experience — it is also influenced by how people speak about us, what is expected of us, and what place we occupy in the family.
For example, if a family has experienced war, repression, or severe loss, a constant expectation of danger or fear of loss may arise in the next generation, despite the person having not experienced these events themselves.
To explain this issue, we can recall Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Purloined Letter,” which Lacan analyzes psychoanalytically. In the story, the contents of the letter are unknown, yet its presence and displacement affect the behavior and relationships of the characters. Something similar can happen in a family: something about the past may remain unspoken, but the silence, fear, and attitudes surrounding it still act upon the family members.
However, this does not mean that all of a person’s mental difficulties are explained by the trauma of the previous generation. What is important is not only what happened in the past, but also how the person themselves perceives and what meaning they attribute to this history. The goal of psychoanalysis is precisely this — to help a person realize what influence family history has on them and to find their own individual place in this history.
When a generation with traumatic experience raises children, what unconscious behavioral models or family dynamics can contribute to transmitting the impact of trauma to the next generation?
Often, a parent does not even notice how their past experience is reflected in their relationship with the child. For example, if they experienced a severe loss themselves, out of a desire to protect the child, they might overcontrol them and give little opportunity for independence. The child, in turn, may gradually absorb the feeling that the world is dangerous and that they cannot cope with threats on their own strength.
Sometimes the effects of trauma manifest in emotional distance, irritability, or unpredictable reactions. In such an environment, the child may constantly monitor the parent’s mood, try to soothe them, and hide their own needs. In addition, the child is sometimes burdened with age-inappropriate responsibility, as if the parent’s well-being depends directly on them.
What matters is also how the family speaks about what was experienced. In total silence, the child feels tension, but does not understand its cause and therefore might think that they themselves are to blame. On the other hand, hearing age-inappropriate, harrowing details can also be overwhelming. Phrases such as “trust no one” or “you must be strong” can make it difficult to express one’s own feelings and ask for help.
These models do not characterize every family that has been through trauma. Often, they were originally ways of defense and survival that persisted later on. Discovering them does not serve to blame the parent; it creates an opportunity to respond differently to the child’s needs and for more security to emerge in the relationship.
It is often believed that becoming aware of a problem is already half the cure. In clinical practice, to what extent is it sufficient for a patient merely to understand that their anxiety or fear is connected to intergenerational trauma — and what does this actually change in their condition?
There is a widespread opinion that awareness of a problem is already half the cure, but in clinical practice, this is not always the case. Awareness is an important step, but by itself, it is not sufficient to change a mental state.
For example, a patient might realize that their constant expectation of danger is connected to the environment in which they grew up, while this environment, in turn, was shaped by their parents’ traumatic experience. This discovery might give them the opportunity to better understand their anxiety, reduce uncertainty, and help form a less critical attitude toward their own feelings. However, merely knowing where the fear comes from does not mean that the person is automatically freed from it.
From the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis, a symptom is not merely a problem whose cause must be discovered. It has a specific place and function in the subject’s mental life. Therefore, it is important not only to gain knowledge about the origin of the symptom, but also to explore how the person is connected to their symptom and what meaning it holds in their life.
In the process of psychoanalytic work, the patient may be given the opportunity to reframe their history, distinguish their own desires from family expectations, and change their attitude toward the experience that previously defined their life.
Furthermore, it is important not to view the influence of intergenerational trauma as a predetermined fact. This is one possible clinical hypothesis that must be evaluated taking into account the patient’s individual history.
Ultimately, the goal of therapy is not merely to know why we feel fear or anxiety. It is important that this knowledge gives a person the opportunity to live differently with their experience. Accordingly, awareness can be the beginning of change, but not a guarantee of change itself.
Awareness helps a person understand why their fear was formed, but therapeutic change occurs when this fear no longer dictates their choices, relationships, and way of life. The goal of psychoanalysis is not merely to explain the past, but to create the possibility of forming a new relationship with one’s own history.
