Healing Generational Trauma

Matthew Green and Lisa Schwarz explore these key aspects of healing generational trauma:

• All present-day trauma can be understood  as having generational and collective roots, and shows itself in the endless replaying of victim, perpetrator and failed rescuer dynamics
• To provide successful generational healing that sticks, the therapist must help the client interweave the narrative with the emotional and somatic memories 
• The need for the client to be as fully embodied as possible to have more capacity and processing ability for the more multi-dimensional work.
• Spotting red flags for the need for generational work - including addictions, pervasive victimhood stance, perpetration dynamics, and medical and psychological symptoms that are non-responsive to regular treatment
• The need for the therapist to be aware of how generational trauma creates obstacles and blocks to healing.
• The requirement for the therapist to do their own work, to perceive clearly what needs attention in their clients' presentations.
• The therapist's need for energetic protections and use of resources to mitigate against any less-than-beneficial generational material exposure.

ABOUT MATTHEW GREEN
Matthew Green is a journalist and author of Aftershock: Fighting war, survivng trauma and finding peace, which documents the struggles of military veterans seeking new ways to heal from psychological injuries. He is a co-host of the forthcoming Collective Trauma Summit 2023 and writes Resonant World, a newsletter supporting the global movement to heal individual, ancestral and collective trauma.
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