Break the cycle. Begin with you.
Intergenerational trauma - sometimes called ancestral or inherited trauma, is the emotional pain, survival patterns, and psychological wounds passed down through families.
You may not have experienced the original event, but you live with its impact: hypervigilance, people-pleasing, chronic guilt, emotional shutdown, or the pressure to succeed at any cost.
Intergenerational trauma is often invisible, but it shows up in:
Overreacting to conflict or criticism
Feeling responsible for others' emotions
Struggling to set boundaries without guilt
Anxiety, shame, or perfectionism that feels disproportionate
A persistent sense that something’s “not yours but lives in you”
These aren’t personality flaws. They’re protective patterns—survival strategies inherited from those who came before you.
Many of my clients come in saying, “I don’t know why I feel this way—I had a good upbringing.”
This is especially common in families from a minority ethnic background in the UK, where collective histories of migration, colonialism, partition, caste violence, and family secrecy still shape our beliefs and behaviours today.
How I Work With Generational Trauma
As a South Asian psychologist and trauma therapist in London, I bring both clinical expertise and cultural understanding into our work together. I use evidence-based approaches such as:
IFS (Internal Family Systems): IFS informed approach to explore your emotional “inner family” and inherited roles
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): to process trauma stored in your body and nervous system
Somatic approaches: to gently release generational stress patterns held below the surface
You won’t have to explain your cultural context to me. I understand the unspoken rules, the loyalty binds, the pressure to keep the ‘family honour’ intact.
Together, we’ll work to understand what you’re carrying—and how to release what’s no longer yours to hold.