It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

An acknowledged authority in the subject offers a ground-breaking method for changing painful legacies that have been handed down through families over many generations.

Depression. Fear and anxiety. Prolonged Pain. Fears. compulsion to think. Research suggests that the causes of these problems may lie not in our current experiences or in abnormal brain chemistry, but rather in the backgrounds of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. Recent scientific findings, which are now generating headlines, confirm what many people have long suspected: that traumatic experiences may be inherited and transmitted down through generations. Leading authorities in post-traumatic stress disorder, such as neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, are cited in It Didn't Start with You. Memories and emotions may endure even in cases when the original trauma victim has passed away or the tale has been suppressed. Our mental and physical health are greatly influenced by these emotional legacies, which are often concealed and stored in everything from ordinary language to gene expression. Their significance has never been fully recognized.

Mark Wolynn is a pioneer in the area of inherited family trauma and has over twenty years of therapy experience working with individuals and groups. His approach, the Core Language Approach, is guided by a practical and prescriptive manual in It Didn't Start with You. Using diagnostic self-inventories, one may find the worries and concerns that are expressed via routine actions, verbalizations, and bodily manifestations. A map of experiences across generations is produced via genogram or extended family tree development techniques. Additionally, reconnection, integration, and the recovery of life and health are facilitated by direct communication, active imagination, and visualization. It Didn't Start With You is a revolutionary method for addressing persistent issues that conventional therapy, medication, or other treatments have often been unable to address.