Family trauma: what is it and how can you help?

When it comes to family trauma, many people think of the Holocaust[1]. Losing a family due to war is something that can cause trauma. Many modern family traumas are also war-related. Veterans returning wounded after a deployment can create family trauma, and if you have to flee because your country has been torn apart by war it can also create family trauma.

You then actually share the same trauma with your family by having experienced a traumatic event together.

Origins of family trauma

Family trauma is not always something very noticeable. If your family suffered greatly from a lack of food during the hunger winter, then always having food in the house may be an important value you have inherited from your family. If you then notice that you become restless when the refrigerator is empty, this may be a signal of family trauma.

In addition, you may actually have someone in your family working in the military who is suddenly called up for duty. Like in the US Desert Storm operation in Iraq in the early 1990s. This was done to protect Kuwait from Iraq, which had suddenly invaded the country. As a result, support for the U.S. military and family members of the soldiers was incredibly high, unlike, for example, support in the Vietnam War (and I think also now with more recent wars). Therefore, the idea among researchers was that this war would lead to fewer mental symptoms.

This was a relatively short and quick war, which also led researchers to believe there would be no family trauma However, because it was so sudden, this was still problematic for families.

Returning soldiers still suffered from sleep problems in one in five cases and were more irritable than usual. These problems affect the entire family. In addition, there is also stress for the family because in an actual war, you can also lose your loved one[2].

Or you may have had to emigrate to another country due to war or poverty, and that change alone can already cause family trauma. Especially if the culture in the other country is very different from what you’re used to and you don’t speak the language well yet. This can even alter roles within the family and affect your sense of social status. All of this isn’t always pleasant, even though you may be living in peace.

Many people who emigrate out of necessity may still suffer from PTSD, depression, and/or anxiety afterward[3].

But sometimes it’s not a social issue that leads to family trauma. The loss of a child can also cause family trauma[4].

These types of traumatic events influence the behavior of parents, for example, on their other/next children. For example, the fear of losing a child can then cause parents to be overprotective or over-interfering.

Passing on a family trauma

A family trauma does not have to be something that you yourself experienced with your parents, so it may have occurred before you were born. This can still have an impact on your life and even cause your bond with your parents to deteriorate (source 4).

A case study of how small amounts of psychedelics can help treat a family trauma revealed that the family trauma involved the loss of a child born to him. This also left the parents very anxious, even when he was already no longer living at home. He found this so suffocating that he reduced contact.

The family trauma also affected his own behavior, such as career choice and how he dealt with the topic of ' death.'

However, by addressing the family trauma, he was able to restore his relationship with his parents. He was able to transform his anger toward his parents into compassion for their loss.

Research on immigrants with family trauma also revealed that if the mother found it difficult to adapt to the new country—or even the new situation—this could cause children to experience more stress and similar issues (source 3).

Sometimes children's complaints can also relate to parental problems that arose at the same age as when the children's complaints arose[5]. I myself have seen these kinds of parallels with my own children. As if the past is repeating itself, and other people I have also heard about this strange phenomenon.

Treating family trauma

When you notice that your children have symptoms similar to something you have experienced, or at an age when something has happened to you as well,. Then it can sometimes help to treat yourself first to see what effect it has on the rest of your family.

For example, I sometimes say that you need to educate yourself first, before you can educate your children. That can already do a lot to stop the transmission of family trauma.

It is often difficult to treat family trauma because many families do not share certain family secrets—not even with the person they have come to see to treat “entirely different” problems (source 5). The real problem may therefore remain hidden.

Getting a family to talk to each other is often already a way to ensure that the family system can recover. Talking can also help if, for example, one of the parents tells something about his or her past, so that it is clear to the children why Mom or Dad is acting the way he or she is and even with grandparents. This can already take away many emotions that get in the way.

If you are a soldier and you return from deployment, it can take nine months to get back into a normal routine with your family. In extreme cases, it may even take a year and a half. Does it not work out much longer than that? Then you may need some help.

Expressing feelings, possibly by taking on a project together, can then help well to bring everything back to normal. This is more constructive than inventing a new crisis just to avoid facing the last one (source 2).

Examining family patterns and then reframing and changing them is also important for treating family trauma (source 5). Sometimes, the grieving process for the original trauma must also be encouraged so that it no longer plays a role in the family’s daily life.

Are you treating someone with an immigrant background? If so, it’s helpful to have an understanding of that person’s culture, as this can influence their beliefs and even how certain issues manifest. For example, somatic complaints are more common in African countries, while stress-related issues are more common in Western countries. It’s good to have this kind of knowledge (source 3).

Hypnosis and family trauma treatment

With hypnosis, the social landscape often plays a role as well. It allows you to change your mental map of where your family members stand in relation to you. You can bring people who are too far away closer, and mentally distance those who are too close.

This can change the influence these people have on you, which can also help you deal with trauma within the family differently.

Regression is also an interesting technique for people suffering from family trauma. This can also be used for processing the family trauma, especially if this is something that everyone has experienced.

With regression, you go back to the moment when the traumatic event caused negative consequences and try to reinterpret that event. Because many family traumas can originate in people's childhood, the interpretation can still be childlike after all these years. Whereas now, as an adult, you can think of entirely different reasons for why a father or mother does what he or she does. This can make you feel less abandoned by your parents, for example.

For people within a family who suffer from PTSD, anxiety and depression, hypnosis in and of itself can also do much to address those symptoms so that the rest of the family does not suffer.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it as a family therapist? Then join our free online masterclass. There, you’ll learn what hypnosis is.

Would you like to get started right away with techniques to help yourself and others feel better? Then come to a seminar or sign up for one of our training programs today.

In this seminar you will already learn some simple techniques and get demonstrations of hypnotherapy, and in the training you will learn directly how to use Ericksonian hypnotherapy techniques.

Training can be taken in class or online. Choose what suits you best.

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