Historical & collective trauma

Researchers describe historical trauma as a collective trauma inflicted on a group of people who share an identity, with psychological, physical and social impacts on later generations.

A 2024 review looked at historical trauma among Indigenous American, African American and Asian American communities in the U.S., including how it passes down, its impacts, and how communities heal.

The idea was first developed to understand Indigenous peoples of the Americas, who endured massive group trauma across generations along with ongoing discrimination, racism and oppression.

The framework was created partly to explain present-day hardship without blaming or pathologising Indigenous people, by linking it to colonisation.

Intergenerational trauma is the family-level version: pain in one family that shapes the next generation. Historical trauma happens when a whole group was targeted, so many families carry it at once.

Colonisation, slavery, genocide, war and forced removal of children harm not only individuals but also language, land, ceremony and family ties. When those are damaged, the supports people would normally lean on are damaged too.

In refugee families, researchers found possible pathways including harsher parenting, parents being less emotionally available, family stress, and difficult communication at home.

In Canada, having a parent or grandparent who attended a residential school was linked with more stress today, and effects seemed to build up across several generations.

One review suggests historical trauma works partly as a shared story that links present-day experiences to the past. That story can be a source of distress, and also a source of resilience.

A Lancet paper describes structural racism as the many ways societies foster discrimination through housing, education, jobs, credit, health care and criminal justice, and calls it a root cause of health gaps.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas faced historical trauma together with ongoing discrimination, racism and oppression. Past and present harms add up.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced devastating collective trauma across generations, together with ongoing discrimination, racism and oppression. Experiences differ between nations, cultures and regions.

A 2024 review of historical trauma among U.S. groups includes African Americans, looking at how this trauma passes down, its impacts, and how communities heal.

Structural racism, through housing, education, jobs, health care and criminal justice, is described as a root cause of health gaps today.

The Culture & mental health guide covers racism and discrimination as a stressor, and ways to cope.

Much of what is known comes from families of Holocaust survivors, along with research on families who survived the Cambodian genocide and other wars.

Survivors often rebuilt whole lives from nothing. Their children may feel both deep pride and a heavy duty to make up for what was lost. The Survivor’s guilt guide may help.

Families forced to flee can lose extended family, language, status and land in one go. Research on refugee families shows parents’ trauma can affect children through family stress and parenting.

The War, conflict & displacement and Immigrant families guides cover practical support.

Research on historical trauma in the U.S. includes Asian American communities, looking at how harms pass down and how communities heal.

A U.S. Department of the Interior report found that from 1819 to 1969 the federal Indian boarding school system included 408 federal schools in 37 states or then-territories. Children were renamed with English names, had their hair cut, and were discouraged or prevented from using their languages, religions and cultural practices.

A second volume in 2024 raised the count to 417 institutions and found that at least 973 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children died while attending. The Department named intergenerational trauma among the lasting effects.

The Government of Canada says some 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their families to attend residential schools. Its 2008 apology acknowledged the intergenerational damage caused.

A 2014 review found that having a parent or grandparent who attended a residential school was linked with more stressful experiences today and bigger effects of stress on wellbeing. Attendance across several generations seemed to have cumulative effects.

The authors say this supports the idea of historical trauma: harms to a group can build up over generations and combine with today’s stresses.

The U.S. Department of the Interior published investigative reports on the federal Indian boarding school system in 2022 and 2024, documenting the schools and children’s deaths, and naming intergenerational trauma among the effects.

The Department named restoring and preserving Native languages a priority, given the damage boarding schools caused to them.

Canada’s 2008 apology acknowledged the intergenerational damage caused by residential schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada made 94 Calls to Action. The Government of Canada reports on progress, including making the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation a federal statutory holiday in 2021.

Some families never spoke about what happened, often to protect each other. Difficult communication at home is one way trauma has reached children in refugee families.

You can honour that silence and still choose to learn, ask gently, and share age-appropriate truth with your own children. The Parenting as a cycle breaker guide has ideas.

A study of young First Nations people in Queensland, Australia found youth suicide rates were 44% lower in communities with high cultural connectedness, and 80% higher where it was low. The study shows a link, not proof of cause.

The researchers supported trying strategies that increase cultural connection and reduce discrimination.

Shared stories about the past can be a source of distress, and also of resilience, pride and identity.

Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child says the capabilities that underlie resilience can be strengthened at any age.

Researchers studying trauma across generations describe flexibly adapting to your environment as the basis of human resilience.

Every community has its own history and its own ways of healing. Learn from people with lived experience and from the community’s own sources.

Ways to learn

• Attend public cultural events when invited
• Learn the history of the land and people where you live
• Read books and watch films made by people from that community
• Take part in days of remembrance

• “That was so long ago.”
• “Why can’t they just move on?”
• Asking someone to explain their whole history
• Speaking for a community you’re not part of

Research links family history of residential schools with stress today, so the past can still matter now.

The CDC encourages connecting young people with positive role models through mentoring and after-school activities, and offering to mentor or volunteer.

SAMHSA’s trauma-informed principles of safety, trustworthiness, peer support, collaboration and empowerment can guide how any organisation treats people with histories of trauma.