How Intergenerational Trauma Impacts Attachment

Tuesday, February 11, 2025.

Dr. Rachel Yehuda and her colleagues (2016) did something revolutionary—they proved that trauma isn’t just a bad memory; it’s a biological inheritance.

Trauma imprints itself not only on the mind but also on the very fabric of our DNA, passed down like an unwanted heirloom.

And nowhere is this more evident than in how intergenerational trauma shapes attachment—the unseen hand that guides how we love, trust, and seek connection.

If you’ve ever wondered why some families seem trapped in cycles of abandonment, overprotection, or anxious clinging, the answer might not be in their personal histories alone, but in the echo of past generations.

Let’s consider how inherited trauma disrupts attachment and how healing can still take root.

Trauma, Memory, and the Ghost in the DNA

Before we even talk about attachment, we need to sit with the unsettling reality that trauma changes people—not just in how they think, but in how their bodies work.

Rachel Yehuda’s research (2016) on Holocaust survivors’ children found that their offspring showed heightened cortisol dysregulation—essentially, their stress systems were primed for survival, even if they had never experienced the trauma firsthand.

This finding expanded to other populations: descendants of Indigenous genocide, African American slavery, and war survivors all carried markers of the distress their ancestors endured (Brave Heart, 1999; Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2011).

Epigenetics—the study of how life experiences switch genes on and off—suggests that trauma rewires the nervous system for vigilance, emotional dysregulation, and a heightened fear response. If you’re wondering how this affects attachment, the answer is: profoundly.

Intergenerational Trauma Meets Attachment Theory

Bowlby’s attachment theory (1969) tells us that Secure Attachment develops when a caregiver is consistently available and responsive. But what happens when trauma disrupts a caregiver’s ability to be emotionally present?

What if their nervous system is wired for threat, not tenderness?

Trauma survivors—especially those who never processed their wounds—often raise children under the shadow of their own unhealed pain. And that’s where things get complicated.

The Anxious-Avoidant Legacy: “Love Feels Dangerous”

Parents who survived war, displacement, or profound loss often develop Avoidant Attachment patterns (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012). Their nervous systems, shaped by trauma, treat intimacy as a risk factor. Love can feel suffocating. Dependence feels unsafe. Their children, longing for connection, may experience emotional distance as rejection, leading to chronic anxiety in relationships.

Example: A grandparent who fled warzones teaches their children, implicitly or explicitly, that emotions are a liability. That child grows up emotionally walled-off, passing down an unspoken rule: we survive, we don’t feel. Their own children—now two generations removed—crave connection but may feel fundamentally unworthy of it.

Hypervigilant Attachment: “Something Bad Is Always Coming”

Children of trauma survivors may develop Anxious Attachment—constantly seeking reassurance and fearing abandonment (Yehuda et al., 2016). Their parents, overwhelmed by their own unresolved pain, may swing between emotional over-involvement and detachment.

Example: A mother whose own mother endured childhood abuse may unconsciously parent through fear—clinging tightly to her child, overprotecting them, and transmitting a world-view where safety is always at risk. The child grows up either mirroring this anxiety or rebelling against it.

Dissorganized Attachment: “I Don’t Know How to Feel Safe”

In cases of severe intergenerational trauma—such as abuse, genocide, or displacement—Disorganized Attachment can develop (Liotti, 2004). This occurs when caregivers themselves are a source of both comfort and fear. Children in these environments grow up deeply conflicted about intimacy: they want connection but fear it at the same time.

Example: A child whose father had PTSD from combat may grow up navigating unpredictable emotional climates. Some days, their father is loving. Other days, he withdraws into silence or erupts in anger. The result? A deep-seated fear of intimacy—because love itself feels unstable.

Breaking the Cycle: Healing Trauma in Attachment Relationships

So, if trauma is inherited, are we doomed to repeat it?

Absolutely not.

Trauma’s legacy is powerful, but so is healing. And the best way to rewrite attachment scripts is through deliberate, conscious relationships—romantic, familial, therapeutic, and communal.

Reparenting Ourselves Through Awareness

The first step is recognizing the patterns. Many people assume their relationship struggles stem from their partners, but sometimes the issue is the ghost of a past they never lived. By understanding inherited trauma, we can stop blaming ourselves (or others) and start addressing the real source: unmet attachment needs.

Attachment Repair Through Secure Relationships

Even if childhood attachment was disrupted by trauma, secure attachment can be earned (Siegel, 2012). Loving partners, close friendships, and therapy all have the power to rewire the nervous system.

Example: A person with Avoidant Attachment, whose parents never modeled emotional closeness, might initially struggle with deep intimacy in a relationship. But through a partner’s patient, consistent presence, their brain slowly rewires: Love doesn’t have to mean loss.

Creating Generational Change: Conscious Parenting

One of the most powerful ways to break trauma cycles is through conscious parenting. Parents who understand their own wounds can ensure they don’t unconsciously pass them down.

Example: A mother with an Anxious Attachment history might recognize that her fears of abandonment shouldn’t dictate how she parents. Instead of projecting those anxieties onto her child, she learns to regulate her emotions, teaching them security instead of fear.

Love as Resistance

It’s a popular cultural belief that we are all careening through life, experiencing a series of random accidents and events, happening for no overarching reason.

But we know better now. Trauma is not random. It’s a story written in the body, passed from one generation to the next.

But stories can be rewritten. Secure attachment is possible—even for those who never had it growing up.

Intergenerational trauma may shape our nervous systems, but conscious love—whether from a partner, a therapist, a friend, or ourselves—has the power to rewrite it.

And that is the real trick of the universe.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Bombay, A., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2011). Intergenerational trauma: Convergence of multiple processes among First Nations peoples in Canada. Journal of Aboriginal Health, 5(3), 6-47.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

Brave Heart, M. Y. H. (1999). Oyate Ptayela: Rebuilding the Lakota nation through addressing historical trauma among Lakota parents. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 2(1-2), 109-126.

Liotti, G. (2004). Trauma, dissociation, and disorganized attachment: Three strands of a single braid. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41(4), 472.

Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. R. (2012). An attachment perspective on psychopathology. World Psychiatry, 11(1), 11-15.

Schwartz, R. C. (1995). Internal family systems therapy. Guilford Press.

Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. Guilford Press.

Yehuda, R., et al. (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372-380.

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