Transgenerational analysis

Transgenerational analysis reveals a surprising fact: 81% of the people who use it notice a significant improvement in their health. This therapeutic approach, based on the idea that we can be influenced by family issues reaching back several generations, offers a unique perspective on our well-being.

Indeed, transgenerational therapy enables us to identify and transform limiting beliefs inherited from our ancestors. Through transgenerational psychology, we can understand how the migrations, wars, and traumas experienced by our forebears continue to affect us today. This therapeutic process, structured in around ten sessions spaced 15 to 16 days apart, is a true journey toward self-knowledge.

At Hello Soins, we make it easier for you to access these alternative practices that can transform your relationship with your family history and improve your overall well-being. In this article, we will explore the fundamental principles of this approach, how it works in practice, and its benefits for your personal growth.

Understanding the basics of transgenerational analysis

To decipher our personal history, transgenerational analysis offers a fascinating approach that delves into family roots. This therapeutic method invites us to examine how the past shapes our present.

Definition and origin of the concept

Transgenerational analysis is a psychotherapeutic approach that examines how traumas, secrets, and family dynamics are unconsciously passed down from one generation to the next. This concept has its roots in several psychoanalytic currents of the 20th century.

It was especially from the 1970s onward that this approach developed, notably thanks to the pioneering work of Anne Ancelin Schützenberger. This French psychologist created psychogenealogy, a method for exploring the invisible links that unite members of the same family across generations. She notably highlighted the phenomenon of the "anniversary syndrome," where certain significant events recur on similar dates across several generations.

Other researchers such as Bert Hellinger also helped develop this approach with "family constellations," a complementary therapeutic method that visualizes family dynamics in space.

Difference between intergenerational and transgenerational

Although often confused, these two terms refer to distinct realities:

• Intergenerational concerns direct relationships between different generations of the same family. These are conscious and observable interactions, such as the education passed on by parents to their children.

• Transgenerational, on the other hand, refers to what is unconsciously transmitted across several generations, sometimes without direct contact. These transmissions include unexpressed emotions, unresolved traumas, or repetitive behavioral patterns.

In other words, while intergenerational generally remains limited to two or three generations in contact, transgenerational can span four, five generations or more, even without direct connection.

Role of the family tree in therapy

The family tree is the fundamental tool of transgenerational therapy. It is not simply a list of ancestors, but rather an emotional and event-based map of the family.

During sessions, the practitioner helps develop a detailed tree that goes beyond simple dates of birth and death. This tree includes significant events (wars, migrations, separations), recurring illnesses, as well as family secrets and unspoken matters.

Through this tool, we can visualize the patterns that repeat and identify the "invisible loyalties" that may influence our current choices and behaviors. This awareness often represents the first step toward freeing ourselves from limiting patterns inherited from our ancestors.

At Hello Soins, we connect you with qualified practitioners who can guide you in this exploration of your family heritage for lasting well-being.

How does transgenerational therapy work?

At the heart of transgenerational therapy lies a structured methodology that makes it possible to explore the depths of our family heritage. Let us look at how these sessions, which reveal our invisible links with our ancestors, actually unfold.

Typical stages of a session

The first consultation is fundamental in transgenerational analysis. During this initial meeting, the therapist addresses the reasons that led the person to seek help and what they expect from this process. This first exchange also makes it possible to establish the therapeutic and ethical framework for the work ahead.

The following sessions take place face to face, in a participatory manner. The practitioner accompanies the patient in exploring their family history by gathering precise information: first names, surnames, significant dates, and important events.

The therapeutic process generally follows three main phases:

1. Establishing the detailed family tree

2. Highlighting inherited behaviors and repetitive patterns

3. Liberation work through complementary exercises

Some therapists enrich their sessions with a variety of tools such as guided imagery, art therapy, photo-language work, or associative cards.

Use of the genosociogram

The genosociogram is the central tool of this therapy. Far more than a simple family tree, it is a graphic representation that includes the psychosocial and biomedical information of family members as well as their emotional relationships.

This document generally covers five to seven generations and uses coded symbols: circles for women, squares or triangles for men. The significant events of each ancestor are gradually added, thus providing an overview of the family emotional context.

This tool makes it possible to highlight repetition phenomena from one generation to the next: accidents, unresolved bereavements, anniversary syndromes, family breakups. Faced with their genosociogram, the patient's psychic and bodily memories are stimulated, revealing invisible links between generations.

Duration and frequency of consultations

Transgenerational analysis sessions generally last between 1 and 1.5 hours. This duration makes it possible to deepen the work and use the different transgenerational tools.

As for frequency, it varies depending on the practitioner and the patient's needs. Some recommend one session every three to four weeks, while others advise an interval of six to nine weeks. On Hello Soins, you can easily find a practitioner whose consultation rhythm will suit your needs.

The total length of a transgenerational analysis process varies, as it is highly individual. A complete therapeutic process generally includes between 5 and 20 sessions, but this duration can be adjusted according to each person's personal journey. Therapy always ends with a closing session that assesses the progress made.

Tangible benefits for well-being

Exploring our family heritage through transgenerational analysis offers tangible results for our quality of life. A study reveals that 81% of people who have undergone transgenerational analysis noticed a significant improvement in their health.

Releasing repetitive patterns

The feeling of being trapped in a closed loop, of reliving the same painful situations again and again, is often a sign of transgenerational inheritance. These repetitive patterns occur when we unconsciously carry the beliefs and values passed down by our ancestors.

Transgenerational analysis makes it possible to identify these patterns by revealing their sometimes distant family origins. Indeed, these automatic behaviors are generally the reflection of unresolved traumatic events in the family line. Through awareness, we can then transform these limiting beliefs and break out of these destructive cycles.

Improving family relationships

When taboo subjects are finally brought to light, family conversations become less tense and easier. Transgenerational therapy thus enables families to "wipe the slate clean" of earlier events that weighed on their communication.

This approach fosters mutual understanding among family members, creating space for more authentic exchanges. By better understanding family history, each person can find their rightful place in the lineage and free themselves from invisible loyalties that hindered relationships.

Strengthening self-esteem

Transgenerational therapy helps the individual to "rework personal and family self-esteem within themselves." By discovering how certain behaviors result from unconscious family influences, we stop blaming ourselves for difficulties that are not entirely our own.

Studies suggest that "children who have a better knowledge of their family history have higher self-esteem and better emotional health." This knowledge strengthens our resilience in the face of life's challenges and restores our confidence in our ability to act.

Reducing psychocorporeal somatization

Our body often expresses what our mind cannot say. Transgenerational therapy helps relieve these physical manifestations by releasing blocked emotions such as anger, sadness, or fear.

These somatizations (back pain, migraines, skin problems) are often the expression of a part of our inner tree that "is screaming something." By working on bodily sensations, we become aware of psychological traumas and cellular memories in order to eliminate them more effectively.

At Hello Soins, we offer you privileged access to qualified practitioners in transgenerational analysis who can support you in this liberating process for your overall well-being.

Historical and scientific foundations

Transgenerational analysis is based on theoretical foundations developed by several emblematic figures of 20th-century psychoanalysis and psychology. These pioneers laid the groundwork for a deeper understanding of our psychic heritage.

Freud and the transmission of mistakes

As early as the beginning of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud was already referring to the possibility that mistakes could be passed from one generation to the next. In his 1914 writings, he stated: "The individual actually leads a double existence: insofar as he is his own end and insofar as he is a link in a chain to which he is subject against his will or at least without the intervention of his will." Freud also observed that what cannot be named nevertheless expresses itself through the body and attitudes, thus allowing family secrets to be transmitted. For him, this transmission had a structuring character, forming the basis for the establishment of law and attachment to ideals.

Jung and the collective unconscious

Carl Gustav Jung deepened this reflection by developing the concept of the collective unconscious, which he presented for the first time in 1916. For Jung, our psyche, like our body, is made up of elements that already existed in our ancestors. In his autobiography "Memories, Dreams, Reflections," he writes: "I have a very strong sense that I am under the influence of things and problems which were left incomplete and unresolved by my parents, my grandparents, and my other ancestors." This collective unconscious constitutes, according to him, an "omnipresent, unchangeable condition, identical to itself everywhere" that links all human beings through primordial images: archetypes.

Anne Ancelin Schützenberger and psychogenealogy

From the 1970s onward, Anne Ancelin Schützenberger popularized the term "psychogenealogy" and developed a concrete therapeutic method. As a psychotherapist and professor emerita at the University of Nice, she drew on her clinical observations to theorize transgenerational transmission. In her famous book "The Ancestor Syndrome," she shows how certain people with asthma carried within them the memory of ancestors gassed during the First World War. She also introduced the concept of the "anniversary syndrome," suggesting that individuals are influenced by their family history across several generations. At Hello Soins, we offer access to practitioners trained in these proven therapeutic approaches.