The definitive, paradigm shifting guide to healing intergenerational trauma—weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room—from Dr. Mariel Buqué, Ph.D, a Columbia University-trained, trauma-informed, psychologist, professor, and practitioner of holistic healing.

When a physical wound is left unhealed, it continues to cause pain and can infect the whole body. When emotions are left unhealed, they similarly cause harm that spreads to other parts of our lives, hurting our family, friends, coworkers, and others. Eventually, this hurt can injure an entire community, metastasizing across years and generations. This is intergenerational trauma. 

This trauma is why some of us become estranged from our families, why some of us are people pleasers, why some of us find ourselves in co-dependent relationships. This trauma can be rooted in the experiences of ancestors, who may have suffered due to their race or identity, and it can be collective, the result of a shared experience like systemic oppression, harmful engrained behaviors in a culture like the acceptance of physical discipline of children, or even a natural disaster like a pandemic. These wounds are complex, impacting our minds, bodies, and spirits. Healing requires a holistic approach that has so far been absent from the field of psychology. Until now. 

From Dr. Mariel Buqué, a leading trauma psychologist, comes a groundbreaking guide to transforming intergenerational pain into intergenerational abundance. With BREAK THE CYCLE, she delivers the definitive guide to healing inherited trauma. Weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room, Dr. Buqué teaches readers how trauma is transmitted from one generation to the next and how they can break the cycle through tangible therapeutic practices, learning to pass down strength instead of pain to future generations.