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).

So, you've taken a childhood trauma test, and it turns out your childhood wasn't all sunshine and finger painting.

What now?

Trauma isn't just some poetic notion of suffering—it lives in the nervous system, rewires the brain, and can turn a perfectly good Tuesday into a high-stakes psychological battle over whether to answer a text message.

But here’s the good news: brains are changeable, and healing is possible.

This guide walks through the latest research on how childhood trauma affects the brain and body, the most effective evidence-based therapies, and practical strategies for rewiring old patterns.

If trauma is the unwanted gift from the past that keeps on giving, consider this your guide to finally returning it.

Childhood trauma has profound effects on mental health, emotional well-being, and even physical health across a lifetime.

To understand the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and other trauma, psychologists and researchers have developed various childhood trauma tests.

These assessments help identify the presence and severity of childhood trauma, providing a starting point for healing and intervention.

But how accurate are these tests? What do they truly measure? And how should they be used in clinical and personal contexts?

This guide explores the history, types, reliability, and implications of childhood trauma tests, helping clients and professionals make informed decisions about their use.

There was a time when teenagers accused their parents of being "unfair," "out of touch," or, in particularly dramatic moments, "literally ruining their lives."

But thanks to TikTok’s viral obsession with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), a growing number of teens are now diagnosing their parents as full-blown narcissists—and it’s creating a new kind of family tension.

Welcome to NarcTok, the corner of TikTok where every emotionally unavailable dad, strict mom, and slightly dismissive parent is suddenly a textbook narcissist.

Have you ever told yourself, just five more minutes of TikTok, only to emerge from your doomscrolling coma an hour later, blinking at the clock like you’ve just time-traveled?

Congratulations, you’re experiencing the wonders of dopamine—a tiny neurotransmitter with a giant influence over your life choices, attention span, and late-night existential crises.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have a knack for picking the wrong romantic partners?

The answer might not lie in bad luck or poor judgment but rather in something much deeper: an unclear sense of self.

A new study published in Self & Identity suggests that individuals with low self-concept clarity (SCC) tend to be less selective in romantic partner evaluations—particularly when assessing less compatible matches.

In other words, the less you understand yourself, the more likely you are to settle for a partner who doesn’t actually “fit.”

Let’s get one thing straight—not everyone is straight.

And yet, society still struggles with this simple fact.

Same-sex couples frequently face minority stress—the chronic stress caused by stigma, discrimination, and systemic inequality (Meyer, 2003).

Despite these challenges, LGBTQ+ couples continue to flourish, displaying extraordinary resilience in love and relationships. Research has shown that the right social support, legal protections, and emotional intelligence can buffer the negative effects of minority stress (Rostosky & Riggle, 2017).

This article dives deep into what science says about LGBTQ+ resilience—from relationship strength to legal protections, coping strategies, and policy implications.

If you want to understand how same-sex couples overcome adversity and thrive, keep reading.

Heterosexual relationships, like so many aspects of modern civilization, are riddled with curious inefficiencies.

One of the more persistent ones is the orgasm gap—a statistically significant phenomenon in which men reach climax far more frequently than women during partnered sex.

For decades, biologists speculated about anatomical justifications for this inequity, but social scientists, armed with the formidable power of objectification theory, have arrived at a new and troubling possibility:

Women, when treated more like aesthetic objects than sentient beings, have a harder time enjoying themselves.

A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships lays out the grim mechanics of this dynamic.

It turns out that when women perceive their male partners as objectifying them—valuing them primarily for their sexual utility rather than their full humanity—their orgasm rates decline.

Meanwhile, their workload in the realm of sexual emotional labor increases. This includes such taxing activities as pretending to have an orgasm, feigning desire, and enduring discomfort with the stoicism of a Victorian governess.

Humans who barely understand themselves are tasked with raising future generations.

It soon becomes self-evident that a troubling reality emerges: some parents never grow up.

Instead of being wise, nurturing figures, they remain emotionally stunted, reacting to stress with all the grace of a teenager whose phone just died.

This is not a new phenomenon. Cultural Narcissism has always taken suseptible souls.

Ancient mythology is riddled with narcissistic, vengeful parents (hello, Cronus).

Shakespeare built entire tragedies around emotionally immature authority figures.

Today, we just have TikTok compilations—30-second masterclasses in dysfunctional parenting.

But unlike in Greek mythology, where you could just overthrow the gods, modern psychology insists we use science-based coping strategies instead.

So, let’s consider the emotionally immature parents—what causes their behavior, how they impact their children, and what, if anything, can be done about it.

The school bus pulls up, the doors swing open, and your child, rather than sprinting toward it with a backpack full of half-eaten granola bars and forgotten permission slips, clings to the doorframe like a cat avoiding a bath. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

School refusal—a phenomenon where children experience extreme distress about attending school—has surged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What was once an occasional occurrence has now become a full-blown crisis, with many parents scrambling for solutions.

Love, like the universe, is expanding at an accelerating rate, and nowhere is this more evident than in same-sex relationships.

As society wrestles with the notion that love is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, same-sex couples are out here doing the equivalent of relationship jazz—riffing on the old structures, improvising new ones, and sometimes setting the entire concept of monogamy on fire just to see what happens.

Let’s dive deep into the trends shaping modern same-sex relationships, armed with social science, and the ever-present sense that we are all just fumbling toward connection in the dark.

If modern romance were a car, most couples would be driving it straight off the lot with no manual, no maintenance plan, and certainly no idea how to handle unexpected breakdowns.

That’s why premarital and pre-separation counseling are two growing trends in 2025.

These counseling modalities both reliably save souls from unnecessary heartache—or at the very least, reduce the number of emotional tow truck calls.