Readers can use the workbook to name family patterns that may have shaped emotional wellbeing, relationships, parenting and coping over time. The opening pages explain how trauma can affect individuals psychologically, physically and socially, then connect those effects to family systems and the way traumatic experiences can echo across generations.
The material introduces intergenerational trauma as more than a single person’s experience, describing how distress, adversity and unresolved harm can influence family dynamics and the development of children and future generations. Examples include families affected by violence, loss, abuse, disasters, genocide, slavery, mass violence and other serious experiences that can overwhelm a person’s ability to cope.
A visual section highlights possible causes and linked issues, including suicide, other types of abuse, homelessness, youth at risk, addictions, parenting issues, incarceration, low or no education and health issues. Later visible content begins to explore root causes in more detail, with short sections on the cycle of abuse, homelessness and economic instability, and lack of education.
The workbook is likely to be most useful for adults exploring their own family history, parents and carers thinking about inherited parenting patterns, and social workers, family support workers or counsellors introducing trauma-informed conversations in sessions. It can be printed for one-to-one work, used as a discussion aid in family support, or read privately before more structured therapeutic or reflective work.
The tone is accessible and supportive, with enough detail to prompt meaningful reflection without becoming overly clinical. Edita Stiborova is named as the author.
