Ghosts in the Nursery
Sunday, March 16, 2025.
Intergenerational trauma isn’t just a metaphor—it’s a biological and psychological reality. Studies show that unresolved trauma can be passed down in three major ways:
Neurobiological Transmission
Trauma changes the stress regulation system of the brain, affecting cortisol levels, amygdala reactivity, and hippocampal function (Yehuda & Bierer, 2009). These altered stress responses can be inherited, predisposing the next generation to heightened anxiety and reactivity.
Epigenetics and Trauma
Research on Holocaust survivors, Rwandan genocide survivors, and children of war veterans has found evidence of epigenetic markers linked to trauma.
These markers influence how stress-related genes are expressed in offspring, even if they never experienced the trauma firsthand (Tyrka et al., 2016).
Attachment and Emotional Transmission
Parents who experienced inconsistent or neglectful caregiving often struggle with emotional attunement, inadvertently teaching their children to suppress their needs or overcompensate for parental distress (Schore, 2019).
How Ghosts Show Up in Everyday Family Life
Ghosts in the Nursery don’t announce themselves with dramatic confrontations. Instead, they appear subtly, through family patterns, emotional responses, and unconscious behaviors:
Parent-Child Emotional Mismatch: A parent grows anxious when their child cries—not because the child is in danger, but because the parent was punished for expressing emotions as a child.
Unspoken Rules About Love: “We don’t talk about feelings in this family” or “Crying is a sign of weakness” are inherited beliefs that dictate emotional suppression.
Overreaction to Small Conflicts: If a parent grew up in an unstable home, they might panic at minor disagreements, fearing abandonment or violence, even if neither is present.
The Family's "Black Sheep" or "Golden Child": Trauma patterns often lead to family members being unconsciously assigned roles that serve unspoken emotional needs of previous generations.
Breaking the Cycle: How to Banish the Ghosts
The good news? Ghosts only have power as long as they remain unseen. Here’s how to confront and heal them:
Recognizing the Patterns
Start by identifying recurring emotional themes in your family history. Questions to ask:
What emotions were acceptable in my family? Which ones were forbidden?
How did my parents respond to stress, and how does that mirror my own reactions?
Are there unresolved traumas in my family's past that no one talks about?
Doing Inner Child Work
Psychologists like John Bowlby and Alice Miller emphasize reconnecting with your inner child to repair unmet needs from the past (Bowlby, 1988). This can be done through:
Journaling from the perspective of your younger self
Using guided imagery to “reparent” the inner child
Practicing self-compassion for emotions that were once dismissed
Seeking Trauma-Informed Therapy
Therapies such as:
Internal Family Systems (IFS) help address different "parts" of the self that hold trauma (Schwartz, 2021).
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) rewires trauma responses stored in the nervous system (Shapiro, 2018).
Somatic Experiencing helps process trauma through the body, rather than just the mind (Levine, 2010).
Creating New Family Rituals
One of the most effective ways to rewrite generational patterns is to introduce new rituals:
Family check-ins to encourage open communication.
Emotionally validating responses (e.g., "It's okay to feel sad, I'm here for you").
Breaking the cycle of silence by discussing past trauma in age-appropriate ways with the next generation.
Turning Ghosts into Ancestors
We don’t choose the ghosts we inherit, but we do choose whether we live with them.
The difference between a ghost and an ancestor is this: ghosts haunt us, ancestors guide us.
By confronting the unconscious traumas of the past, we have the power to transform painful histories into wisdom, resilience, and emotional freedom—for ourselves and for every generation that follows.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. Basic Books.
Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14(3), 387-421.
Levine, P. A. (2010). In an unspoken voice: How the body releases trauma and restores goodness. North Atlantic Books.
Schore, A. N. (2019). Right brain psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Schwartz, R. (2021). No bad parts: Healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the internal family systems model.Sounds True.
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures. Guilford Press.
Tyrka, A. R., Parade, S. H., & Carpenter, L. L. (2016). Epigenetic effects of early life stress: Pathways for risk and resilience. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 71, 32-47.
Yehuda, R., & Bierer, L. M. (2009). Transgenerational transmission of cortisol and PTSD risk. Progress in Brain Research, 167, 121-135.