Intergenerational Cycles of Trauma and Violence: An Attachment and Family Systems Perspective

Exploring the conditions under which children, as a function of their own abuse, become abusive themselves.

That experiences from childhood affect our behavior in adulthood, especially in the ways we treat our children and intimate partners, is generally accepted. Indeed, theories of intergenerational transmission of violence indicate that if we ourselves have been abused and neglected as children, we will likely be abusive and neglectful to others close to us—thus extending the cycle across...