The Epigenetics of Trauma: Ancestral Lineages of What We Carry
As an intuitive psychologist, I have been guided to focus heavily on the area of ancestral healing and unearthing the lineages of trauma we carry. The burgeoning scientific field of epigenetics explores how environmental factors alter the expression of genes and how such alterations on a molecular level are carried forth across generations. Specifically, the area of epigenetic inheritance has wide-ranging implications for the transgenerational transmission of human experience. From my experience, ancestral, and even past life, trauma is one of the most significant sources of influence on how we navigate our experience and, therefore, how we create our personal reality. Of course, early life and acute instances of trauma are deeply impactful, though consider that these unfoldings have linkages to what has occurred prior and may in some ways be a re-enactment of the past. While we cannot yet fully validate this according to Western forms of scientific inquiry, we can see the profound strides in epigenetic research beginning to mirror what eastern philosophies and self-inquiry has illuminated for centuries. Personally, my work with traumatized clients as well as my own healing journey has validated the ways in which ancestral lineages wire and precondition the nervous system to manifest the traumatized states of brain, mind, and body.
When considering ancestral lineage or epigenetic inheritance in clinical research, researchers are understandably cautious in their interpretations. Studies are not yet able to isolate whether the source material of trauma is transmitted during prenatal and natal stages of development or even prior. Additionally, research acknowledges that it is still too difficult to differentiate the effects of parental behavior from heritable effects of biological transmission. Such is the age old question of nature or nurture. However, the resulting influence from generations of trauma in areas like the human stress response is profoundly clear. Though I acknowledge the limitations of western science in this area, I am intuitively guided to the understanding that trauma can be inherited ancestrally as a part of becoming embodied - in other words, the same genetic material that determines other aspects of your physical experience may determine the beliefs, thought patterns, and associated emotion states regarding how you see yourself, others, and the world. The implications of this understanding are profound and apply to all aspects of health and healing.
Examples of modern research findings include the epigenetic impacts of trauma on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) , the central nervous system (CNS), and the immune system. All of these systems are involved in the experience of emotional threat, resulting in effects on long term emotional and physical reactivity to stress. The commonly understood language of stress, and one’s relationship to it, is the foundational language for trauma and all modern disease. Stress is a psychophysiologic - mind and body - experience that contributes to every aspect of human survival and suffering, and our relationship to it determines how we show up in all situations. From a neurobiological perspective, stress can be understood as an experience of tension or demand on the body, which elicits the body’s survival response to threat and involves the HPA axis, CNS, and immune system, as well as the limbic system or “emotional brain.” The body’s stress response is not inherently bad, but for many people it has become maladaptive to present reality based on trauma conditioning. Specifically, these systems in the body that help you survive have become chronically reactive to perceptions of danger or threat in one’s environment and trigger “first responder” systems, such as releasing cortisol and inflammatory cells, when not necessary. In the modern era of medical science, inflammation is considered a primary source of most chronic illness and disease; however, rather than being a foundational cause, some researchers now agree it is more likely correlated with other pre-existing causes, such as the epigenetics or pre-conditioning of trauma in the body.
The manifestations of a preconditioned or traumatized stress response system include virtually all symptoms across the mental and physical landscape. The influence of these conditions spans from the classic psychiatric diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), to panic disorders, depression and anxiety, gut health, chronic pain, and even life-threatening disease or illness. All may be considered branches of a more deeply rooted trauma tree, or at least profoundly influenced by such conditions. I consider a deeper understanding of the epigenetics of trauma to be the foremost subject of all healing and wellness in the 21st century.
The hormone cortisol plays a vital role in the stress response and is expressed in almost every cell in the body to regulate genes that control development, metabolism, and immune response (Yehuda and Lehrner, p. 14, 2018). Yehuda and Lehrner found that generations of holocaust survivors had children with chronically low cortisol levels, which impacts an individual’s ability to respond to threatening situations as well as to turn off the stress response when it's over. Such examples span far and wide from more notable traumatic circumstances to the average stressors of generations past.The overall impression of this research is that most individuals are born into bodies that are already dysregulated and maladaptive to stress in some fashion. It is worth noting that resilience plays a role in these inherited conditions as well, so it is not all bad, but in a modern age rife with self-blame and individual responsibility, the world of what we carry can provide a vital entry way to deeper understanding and forgiveness for who we are and how we behave. Intuitively, I sense that the source material of what is transmitted is the energy of conditioned beliefs, though this will take longer to reveal itself in Western science.
Though debates on where trauma originates will no doubt continue for decades, I believe the gifts of intuitive wisdom and self-inquiry, in combination with a deeper understanding of genetic expression and alteration in the body’s core systems, will pave the way in healing and, therefore, allow human beings to fit their traumatic experience within a more expansive whole. With a deeper awareness of what we carry, we may be able to understand, dance with, and heal our traumatic experience more easily, allowing it to guide us to the fullest expression of ourselves.
References
Lehrner, A., & Yehuda, R. (2018). Cultural trauma and epigenetic inheritance. Development and Psychopathology, 30(5), 1763–1777.
Lehrner, A., & Yehuda, R. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(3), 243-257.
Pfeiffer, J. R., Mutesa, L., & Uddin, M. (2018). Traumatic stress epigenetics. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 5(1), 81-93.
Wolynn, M. (2017). It didn't start with you: how inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle. New York, New York, Penguin Books.