For example:

Succumbing to his fear and insecurity, a young man in Nazi Germany turned in his hiding Jewish neighbors to the Gestapo. The neighbors are subsequently murdered in the death camps. He lived his life telling no one about this and suppressed the shame he incurred because of his dishonorable actions. For his entire life, he experienced emotional pain. Rather than forgiving himself and resolving it, he inflicted it upon others by being cruel and cold-hearted. Because he could not forgive himself, the insidious, discordant energy of shame became programming imprinted in his mind as well as every cell of his body.

The energies of genetic programming of this sort can be passed down through the egg and the sperm for multiple generations. Like genetic predispositions for certain characteristics and constitutions, we too can be triggered by the energetic programming that has been passed down through the generations.   

So, for example, a descendant of this man may come into the world with this energetic programming of shame, born not out of his/her own actions, but from that which began with the great-great-grandfather. This programming for shame becomes a point of attraction or a magnetizing factor for the scenarios, situations, or actions that reflect the inherent discordant energy of shame held by the descendant. However, it may manifest itself differently. For example, the descendent may display this shame program by having low self-esteem and being the brunt of mistreatment by others. These patterns can be cleared for all affected generations. The descendent/client can then begin to shape life differently without the underlying pattern of shame guiding beliefs and decisions about life and self.

We may also suffer from identification programming, which relates to how we may see ourselves in relation to another or how we see them. Sometimes, for example, we unconsciously identify with our parents and take on their traits. When the traits are negative, we then see ourselves as negative. Or we may experience inheritance programming, as our genes conform to a set of expectations formed through every day conditioning through observed behavior. 

A few years ago, I read The Ancestor Syndrome: Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree by the internationally renowned French psychotherapist Anne Ancelin Shützenberger. She greatly expanded my simple understanding by providing fascinating insight and myriad examples and case studies collected over four decades of clinical practice. Suffice to say, I could not put it down!

Using a tool called the genosociogram (also referred to as a genogram), Shützenberger illustrates how her clients have conquered seemingly irrational fears, psychological and even physical difficulties by discovering and understanding the parallels between their own life and the life of their forebearers.

A genosociogram is a family tree that graphically represents and brings important life events and connections to light.

Some examples include: given names, places, dates, landmark occurrences, and major life events such as births, marriages, deaths, critical illnesses, accidents, moves, occupations, and retirement. It also highlights the different types of relations the subject has with their environment and the bonds between them and other people. For example: “Who lives under the same roof,” who “eats from the same dish,” who raises whose children, who runs away and to where, who arrives—through birth or moving in—at the same time another goes away—through death or departure, who replaces whom in the family, how things are shared—particularly through inheritance or donation after a death, who is favored and who is not, as well as repetitions and injustices in the “family book-keeping.”

Then the genosociogram is deepened and enriched by examining: what is spoken and unspoken, and exploring the “gaps” in what has been said, what has been “forgotten,” the splits, the break-ups, the “broken hearts,” the synchronous events, and the coincidences in dates of birth and dates of death, marriage, separation, accidents, the onset of illness, failure in exams, or reconciliation. The genosociogram reveals important anniversary dates in the client’s world, in his family universe, in his social atom, in his social and economic environment, in his personal psychological reality.

Shützenberger shares so many interesting concepts that affect us. Here are a few excerpts:

Family book-keeping Within the collective unconscious of the family line is the family ledger. It keeps track of the credits and debits of all of the members; for example, the justices and injustices, the affections and retributions, the staying or fleeing. Even if one runs away from the family obligations by creating geographical distance, they cannot be free of the family debts. Fleeing can infuse an individual with unexplainable existential guilt. The invisible family ledger notes the debts, obligations, or merits of each member. If the ledgers are not balanced, problems can be passed on from generation to generation.

Invisible family loyalties Unconscious systemic programming of the clan expects its members to be loyal to the thinking, feeling, and motivations of the family unit. Even if a member disapproves of the family’s thinking, feeling, or motivations, they will succumb to the same patterns unless they consciously break the loyalty bond and make concerted efforts to create a new pattern. Patterns of divorce and broken families are an example of this.

Another example might be a brilliant and capable person who fails to succeed in school by not studying or completing assignments. They may be affected by family loyalty because the parents/ancestors were poor, had no more than an 8^th-grade education, and were expected to work to support the family. The invisible family loyalty is not to advance, have more abundance, or fulfill dreams beyond those of the family line.

Family Secrets Revealing the truth, even when it is shameful, difficult, or tragic, is better than hiding it, even if the intent is to protect others “for their own good.” What is left hidden, secret, or unspoken becomes more serious in the long run. If the slate is not cleared, the energetic ramifications are then left to be revisited within the family line until it is “brought to light.”

Transgenerational Terror Shützenberger discusses the effects of terror, such as war trauma, where soldiers came within a hair’s breadth of death and felt the “wind of the cannonball” which killed or massacred their buddy or brothers in arms. While some eventually lost all memory of the experience, others were frozen to their souls with “unspeakable” terror. The shock wave that hit them was seemingly transmitted to certain descendants who are sometimes frozen to the bones (Raynaud’s Syndrome) or feel sick, experience anxiety, throat constriction, or nightmares during specific anniversary periods. The unfinished mourning becomes somatized (manifest as physical symptoms) in descendants.

My Own Family Case Study

Reading this last explanation put me on high alert. My daughter Claire had developed the symptoms of Raynaud’s syndrome shortly after she turned 20. Her feet would become numb and white at the onset of winter, even when the weather was not overly cold. I did not have access to any information that would help me fill out a genogram, but I did have my dowsing ability and a fair aptitude for inner sight.

As I often determine during my Holofield Healing or Resonance Repatterning sessions, I muscle-checked for the number of generations and on which side the original terror was established. I determined that the trauma was rooted 12 generations back on her father’s side. The trauma pattern followed only the men of the generations until that twelfth, and that was a female.

I closed my eyes to “look” at the scene. I saw a young woman, also about age 20. It was snowy as she returned to her village to discover something horrific had happened to her three children. I could not see them, but it felt as though they had all died, killed during her short absence. I also saw a young man, perhaps a teenager. I sensed it was her younger brother. He had some responsibility but was not the cause of whatever horror had befallen the family. I intuited that the children were under his care while their mother was away. But in his immaturity, he was distracted and left them unattended.

I was guided to figure out the time period, so I estimated what it might be, given 12 generations. Then I muscle-checked for the exact date. I knew that the family line originated in Sweden, so I googled “the year 1740 in Sweden.” I was stunned at what I discovered! At the top of the timeline for that year was “The case of Christina Johansdotter.” While it was not the story of Claire’s ancestor in question, it explained what must have happened in the life of that twelfth-generation ancestor.

WARNING: The following italicized excerpt is disturbing. Feel free to skip this part if you are sensitive.

The case of Christina Johansdotter was brought before the court in Stockholm in 1740. She was accused of having murdered the infant of a friend by decapitating it with an axe. She was unemployed, clearly depressed, and had isolated herself socially for some time.

Christina freely admitted her crime and openly declared that she was guilty of what she was accused of. She clearly explained her motive to the court. She had been deeply in love with her fiancé, and when he died, she had lost all will to live and wanted to follow him to the grave. She had often contemplated suicide, but as the church taught that suicides go to hell, she would never see her fiancé again if she did so, as he was surely in heaven.

At a loss as to how to solve this predicament, she witnessed the decapitation of a woman sentenced for infanticide, and the solution became clear to her. The murder of an adult did not always lead to a death sentence, but the murder of a child always did, and after having confessed and repented their crime, even murderers were forgiven for their sin. She therefore decided that she would do this, confess, repent and be executed, and finally see her fiancé again, and thus they would be reunited in heaven.

With this intent, she went to a friend, asked her to lend her infant (with the purpose of showing it off to an acquaintance on a visit from the country), took it outside and chopped its head off with an axe. The punishment for the murder of a child in Sweden at this time was decapitation, after which the corpse was to be publicly burned at the stake.

Cases such as this were common; to murder a child was a common method used by many suicidal people. The reasons for this were religious. The contemporary religious belief was that suicide would send the soul to hell; however, an executed person who confessed and repented his/her crime was believed to go straight to heaven. Children were not just ideal victims because they were easy prey due to their disadvantage in size and strength, but also because they were believed to be free of sin and, thus, did not have to receive absolution before death in order to go to heaven.  In 18th century Sweden, the wish to commit suicide was the second most common reason for murdering a child, surpassed only by unmarried women suffocating their newly-born infants.

These suicide-executions represent quite a peculiar historical phenomenon, which developed its own customs and culture. At the end of the 17th century, executions were given a solemn character in Stockholm; the condemned and their families bought special costumes, which were to be white or black and decorated with embroidery and ribbons, and paid for a suite to escort the condemned to the place of execution at Skanstull.

The authorities greatly disapproved of all this, as the purpose of an execution was to put fear in people, a purpose which was destroyed by these theatrical performances, which, according to the government, gave the audience sympathy for the condemned suicidals, especially if they were female.

To remedy this, the government issued a new law to abolish this execution-culture and restore the intended deterrent effect of executions. The new law was put into effect in 1754, fourteen years after the execution of Johansdotter and in the middle of this execution culture. After this, everyone suspected of committing murder with the motive of suicide by execution was to stand on the scaffold for two days with the crime stated on a board and whipped, and taken to their execution blindfolded.

This did not have much effect in reality; King Gustav III of Sweden even contemplated replacing the death sentence with life in prison for female child murderers, simply because they were given such sympathy at the executions that the punishment did not have the intended deterrent effect. 

The prevalence in mid-1700 Sweden of suicidal women killing children, confessing, and repenting for the sole purpose of being executed in lieu of suicide, and thus, granted entrance into heaven, gave me the clues I needed. I could understand the transgenerational terror that was manifesting physically in Claire’s symptoms. Imagine being frozen in one’s tracks of “unspeakable” horror upon discovering that your children had been victims of such a crime. Shützenberger explains how anniversaries, such as turning a certain age, and environment/place can activate the “Ancestor Syndrome.” Claire turning 20 and the onset of winter may have been the activation for her.

As with many victims of unresolved, unspeakable terror, the energy is trapped in the body-mind system and the individual remains inward, unable to fully express themselves and be free of the torment. This unresolved trauma energy, active in the family unconscious is telescoped to generation after generation. Even when the unspeakable event such as this is unknown to the descendants, it’s influence can become somatized (manifest as symptoms in the physical body) or manifest as substance abuse, addictive behaviors, or inability to connect deeply with others, just to name a few.

As Claire and I discussed her experience before this writing, she said the symptoms have diminished but are not entirely gone. I had only brought my discovery to Claire’s consciousness before. Writing about this has shed new light on it. I didn’t consider exploring the energies of the brother of this ancestor. I can imagine the profundity of horror and guilt that must be there. I’m eager to explore more deeply and clear this with Claire and all the generations in a session.

By “digging” deeply into the life stories we have known or heard of our ancestors, we can search for and excavate the hidden, unconscious links and bring significant understanding and meaning to the troubles of our life experiences. If you’d like to explore your own genogram, numerous software is available. Wondershare EdrawMax has an excellent free version if you’d like to try it out. See: https://www.edrawmax.com/genogram/genogram-maker/

The unresolved traumas of our ancestors are stored in the family collective unconscious. If genogram discovery does not alleviate your conditions or patterns, consider Holofield Healing or Resonance Repatterning to find the unconscious root causes and clear them. 



It is liberating to consider that when we heal an ancestral pattern, we are not only freeing future generations, but healing backwards through time, liberating all those souls who were left unresolved, unforgiven and misunderstood. 

— Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home by Toco-pa Turner