We Carry an Invisible Bag
We all carry an invisible bag on our backs as we step into our lives. This bag contains the values, expectations, traumas, and success stories that we carry with us from our parents, grandparents, and even ancestors we have never met. In psychology, this is called psychological legacy. Just like genetic inheritance, emotional and cultural inheritance is passed down from generation to generation. However, this invisible burden sometimes shapes our lives and sometimes limits us.
What is Psychological Legacy?
Psychological inheritance refers to the values, concerns, hopes, and expectations that are consciously or unconsciously transmitted within a family. Some of this legacy can be protective: resilience, hard work, loyalty to family. But some of it can also constrain personal development: invisible rules such as “failure is unacceptable in our family,” “don’t dishonor our family,” “don’t show how you feel” can become pressures that shape the individual’s life.
Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (1959) introduced the concept of “shadow” when describing the repressed aspects of the individual. This shadow is often nourished by emotions carried over from the family. Modern psychology similarly shows that intergenerational trauma and burdens play a significant role in an individual’s behavior and relationships.
Intergenerational Trauma and Invisible Transference
Research shows that traumas affect not only the individual but also subsequent generations. Examples include the high incidence of anxiety disorders and trust issues in children of Holocaust survivors, or the fact that experiences of war, migration, and natural disasters leave their mark on subsequent generations (Yehuda et al., 2014).
This transmission can work not only on an emotional level but also on a biological level. According to epigenetic research conducted over time, severe stress and trauma can affect the functioning of genes and are passed on to subsequent generations (Kellermann, 2011). In other words, the losses our grandparents suffered can unknowingly shape our emotional inheritance today.
Family Burden of Achievement and Honor
On the shoulders of many young people in Turkey, we hear this sentence: “You should be the pride of our family.” Academic and professional success is not only an individual goal but is linked to the reputation of the whole family. This can motivate the individual, but it can also become a heavy psychological pressure.
In individualistic cultures such as the UK, inheritance is often passed on in the form of “freedom to choose your own path.” But here too there is a different burden: the pressure to be independent, to establish an identity separate from the family. In both cases described, the individual tries to chart his/her own path together with the invisible expectations passed down from the family.
Silent Burdens, Unspoken Emotions
One of the most challenging aspects of psychological legacy is that unspoken, repressed emotions within the family are passed down through generations:
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Silence about traumas (e.g., migration, loss, poverty)
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Repressed emotions (“we don’t cry in our family”)
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Unspoken grief
These silences can return in subsequent generations as emerging problems, unexplained anxieties, or recurring problems in relationships. In psychotherapy, it is often the case that an individual’s feelings of anxiety or guilt that seem unrelated to his or her own life are in fact due to feelings carried over from the family.
Confronting Psychological Legacy
But is it possible to get rid of these invisible burdens?
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Awareness: The first step is to realize what values, fears, and expectations are passed down to us from the family.
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Questioning: “Does this feeling belong to me, or does it come from my family history?” is critical.
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Therapy: Especially in resolving intergenerational trauma, therapy processes help the individual to understand both their own and their family’s story.
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Writing a new story: It is important not to reject family legacy but to transform it. Letting go of some burdens and consciously owning others is a healthy way forward.
Rewriting the Psychological Legacy for Future Generations
Psychological inheritance is not only a burden we inherit from the past; it is also a gift we pass on to those who come after us. The decisions we make today can shape the emotional world of our children and grandchildren. The difficulties and traumas experienced in a family can be passed down through generations, as can feelings of compassion, love, resilience, and trust. Therefore, recognizing our own psychological legacy as individuals is important not only for our personal freedom but also for the health of future generations. In a sense, “breaking the invisible chains” means leaving a lighter bag for those who come after us.
Breaking Invisible Chains
We all carry a legacy from our family: love, solidarity, values, but also traumas, fears, and expectations. Recognizing our psychological heritage is the key to shaping our own lives more freely. Recognizing the chains is the first step to breaking them.
Sometimes, when we carry the burdens of our family, we are actually trying to complete their unfinished stories. However, in order to write our own story, we must first recognize this invisible heritage. Because freedom does not come about by rejecting what is transmitted to us in life, but by consciously choosing again.
References
Jung, C. G. (1959). Aion: Researches into the phenomenology of the self. London: Routledge.
Kellermann, N. P. (2011). Epigenetic transmission of Holocaust trauma: Can nightmares be inherited. The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, 50(1), 33-39.
Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Lehrner, A., Desarnaud, F., Bader, H. N., Makotkine, L., … Meaney, M. J. (2014). Influences of maternal and paternal PTSD on epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor gene in Holocaust survivor offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry, 171(8), 872-880.