Intergenerational & Racial Trauma Therapy
Virtual trauma Therapy in California
The stories we tell
As humans, we make meaning through storytelling. The stories we inherit from our families and ancestors shape how we understand ourselves, our identities, relationships, and experiences. Family histories can hold many perspectives, shaped by memory, culture, beliefs, and unresolved experiences.
Intergenerational trauma
Pain, grief, oppression, displacement, discrimination, and survival experiences of our ancestors can affect generations after. These experiences may be passed down through epigenetic changes, learned behaviors, family stories, relationship patterns, and collective memories of what did and did not happen. For historically oppressed and marginalized communities, this can also include the impacts of racism, colonization, cultural loss, forced migration, and systemic oppression.
Your living truth
You may carry both your own experiences and the weight of your ancestral history. These burdens can be compounded by pressure to acculturate, assimilate, code-switch, or conform to dominant cultural norms while navigating discrimination based on your intersecting identities. Over time, chronic acculturation and discrimination-related stress can contribute to increased allostatic load on your wellbeing. This may also look like imposter syndrome, internalized racism, low self-esteem, hypervigilance, cultural disconnection, difficulty feeling a sense of belonging, or feeling that you must change yourself to be accepted. Understanding these patterns can help you recognize what you have inherited, what you have survived, and what you may be ready to transform.