Rewriting Your Story: The Role of Therapy in Breaking Generational Patterns

Most people, at some point, catch themselves doing something they swore they never would. It might be the sharp tone you recognise from a parent, a way of going quiet when you are hurt, a restlessness around money, or a habit of loving people who cannot quite love you back. In those moments there is often a strange sense of recognition, as though you are reading lines from a script that was written before you were born. Family patterns can show continuity across generations through learning, relationships, social conditions and other interacting influences, but continuity is not inevitability.

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Psychologists have thought about this for decades. In family-systems theory, psychiatrist Murray Bowen proposed a “multigenerational transmission process” to describe how relational responses and levels of differentiation may show continuity across generations. It is an influential theory rather than a settled causal finding. Some patterns may be communicated explicitly; others may be learned through observation, repeated interaction and the wider family environment.

Early care may contribute to later relationship expectations and caregiving, alongside later experiences, partners, social conditions and other influences. Attachment researchers have followed this thread directly. A 2016 meta-analysis of 95 samples (N = 4,819) found modest associations between caregivers’ current attachment representations and child-caregiver attachment, about r = .31 for secure-autonomous and r = .21 for unresolved patterns (Verhage et al., 2016). Caregiver sensitivity explained only part of the association, and the results do not mean a parent’s history determines an individual child’s attachment. The paper later received a correction to percentages in its Table 7; its headline effect-size conclusions were not withdrawn (Psychological Bulletin, 2018). The 1998 ACE study found graded associations between retrospectively reported childhood adversity and several adult health and health-risk outcomes in an insured US sample. Because it was observational and retrospective, it did not establish that adversity directly caused those outcomes, and it did not study participants’ children (Felitti et al., 1998). Later research has found that parents’ adversity histories can be associated with some outcomes in their children, through multiple and still-debated pathways. These are increases in risk, not an inevitable transfer, and protective and social conditions also matter (Narayan et al., 2021).

Part of what makes these patterns feel stubborn is how automatic they can be. Under pressure, many of us do not calmly choose our response; we react in ways learned early, often before we have noticed we are doing it. Within Bowen’s theory, “differentiation of self” refers to maintaining thoughtful, principle-guided action amid emotional pressure; it is not the same as coldness or emotional cutoff. It remains a theoretical concept rather than a measured mechanism, but many people recognise the experience it points to.

Here is the part that matters most. Learned responses can sometimes be changed, although entrenched patterns may require sustained support and changes in the surrounding conditions. “Cycle breaker” is a popular label rather than a clinical category. Research supports both continuity and change: family history can influence risk without determining a person’s future. Patterns can change, but the extent, route and timescale vary, and no form of help can guarantee a particular intergenerational outcome.

This is where therapy may earn its place. Therapy may help some people identify relational patterns, understand triggers and practise alternative responses. Much of the work is making the invisible visible, putting words to a pattern you have felt your whole life but never quite named. Some therapists map it out across the generations, so you can see where a particular way of coping began and recognise that it was once a solution to someone else’s problem rather than a flaw in you. The studies cited here establish associations; they do not show that individual therapy by itself prevents intergenerational transmission. None of this asks you to blame your parents. Understanding a parent’s context need not mean denying responsibility or minimising harm; understanding a pattern is what can finally let you set it down.

Breaking a generational pattern is not about erasing where you come from. It is about deciding, deliberately, what you carry forward and what stops with you. Your past is a chapter, not the whole book, and you are still the one holding the pen. Therapy can be one place to explore these patterns and possible changes, without promising a particular outcome. When you are ready, I would be glad to help.

Sources

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

Narayan, A. J., Lieberman, A. F., & Masten, A. S. (2021). Intergenerational transmission and prevention of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Clinical Psychology Review, 85, Article 101997. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2021.101997

Verhage, M. L., Schuengel, C., Madigan, S., Fearon, R. M. P., Oosterman, M., Cassibba, R., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2016). Narrowing the transmission gap: A synthesis of three decades of research on intergenerational transmission of attachment. Psychological Bulletin, 142(4), 337-366. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000038

“Narrowing the transmission gap: A synthesis of three decades of research on intergenerational transmission of attachment”: Correction. (2018). Psychological Bulletin, 144(4), 393. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000149 (The correction concerned percentages in Table 7.)

Evidence last reviewed 22/08/2026. This article is for general information and does not provide a diagnosis or replace individual medical, psychological or legal advice. Therapy outcomes vary, and an approach that helps one person may not suit another.