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

by Mark Wolynn

Book Overview

A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling- the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains-but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited-that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn't Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score . Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn't Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn't Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1101980362
• ISBN13: 9781101980361
• Release Date: April 2016
• Publisher: Penguin Life
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.98 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Wow

All I can say is wow. I bought this book over a year ago and it collected dust on my shelf until I picked it up this week. It’s a pretty quick but consuming read. Only 200 pages but hits like an anvil. Mark has a good ratio of illustration to explanation in this book. I didn’t feel like I was reading a novel or a self-help guru book. I would honestly say this book has changed my perspective and my life. I laughed and cry recalling memories from my past. I confronted demons that have been hushed for years. I feel at peace having read this. This is a great book for someone who knowingly or unknowingly comes from a troubled background, or continues to make mistakes that you don’t fully understand. You might find that it indeed did not start with you. I feel like I was able to pinpoint the root of my struggle and Mark provided actionable steps to start walking back to myself. Tremendous read and an experience I will always remember!