By Carly Smith
Trigger warning: suicide, death, incest, pregnancy
In Emotional Inheritance, psychoanalyst Galit Atlas addresses the heavy subject of intergenerational trauma and the ways in which the distressing life events of parents and grandparents affect the lives of their descendants. Readers are exposed to a variety of scarring and painful, yet not necessarily uncommon, experiences that live in the bodies of not only the individuals to whom they happened but also their children and their children’s children. As Atlas recounts stories of her patients and herself, she delicately explains how one’s traumatic circumstances can be passed on to future generations, both knowingly and unknowingly. While providing these anecdotes, she simultaneously sheds light on her thoughts, questions, and expertise as a psychological professional, helping readers—particularly those without a substantial education in psychology—make connections about, and build an understanding around, the part that trauma plays in families.
The book has three sections. In the first part, Atlas describes the effects of trauma related to grandparents. In one story, we learn about how a mother’s inability to process her own mother’s death has presented itself in her daughter, who is having an extramarital affair. Atlas’s second example touches on a grandmother who was the victim of incest and the ways in which this victim’s relationships with both her daughter and granddaughter were negatively impacted because of it. Next, we hear about a man who is having trouble overcoming a breakup with his partner and later learn that his paternal grandfather died by suicide, likely because he felt forced to suppress his homosexuality. Atlas also uncovers traumas that descendants of Holocaust survivors carry and how their pain and terror stay in the family much longer than one may expect.
In the second section, Atlas focuses on trauma passed down from parents. She describes situations of children whose parents lost other children, partners, and their own parents in tragic ways. She also touches on individuals whose parents had unwanted children and people whose folks lived through and participated in war. Like in the first section, Atlas effectively and compassionately shows her audience that inherited trauma will exist until it is discovered, better understood, and worked on.
The final part of Emotional Inheritance centers mostly on one’s own tragedies and experiences. We are presented with different ways that we subconsciously hold trauma and try to protect ourselves- violence, idealization, avoiding connection, and hyper-vigilance- and how these defense mechanisms drive us further from processing sorrow and breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma.
Although this book discusses many intense, triggering topics, Atlas manages to address each one with dignity, profound knowledge, and hope. She induces optimism in circumstances of great pain without dismissing or belittling the tragedies that she and her patients have endured. She intertwines client and personal stories with professional insight and well-researched support, leaving readers empathetic, enlightened, and more emotionally intelligent. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in trauma, has trauma in their lineage, or who is curious about psychotherapy but may not be ready to take that leap.