Inherited Fate: Family Trauma and the Ways of Healing

The international bestseller.

Our families shape who we are. From the circumstances of our conception and the family structure we are born into, to the expectations placed upon us and the love we receive, we are formed by our social and familial network. So if we want to truly know ourselves – to find out why we falter, to explain our anxieties, our repeated relationship patterns – we must look beyond our own lives and discover the secrets, unprocessed losses, and limiting beliefs of our parents, grandparents, and even to ancestors we have never met.

In Inherited Fate, psychologist Noemi Orvos-Toth invites the reader on a journey of self-awareness that spans generations. Illustrated with vivid stories and questions that invite the reader to engage personally, Inherited Fate is a fascinating framework for discovery of the self, the dismantling of inherited beliefs and the revelation of wisdom stored in the body.

We cannot undo what has happened, but if we understand it, the past can help give a different shape to the present and to our future.

Inherited Fate explores:

• the impact of the events surrounding conception and birth – such as the stress our mothers experienced during pregnancy, the expectations of our parents about our sex or our role in the family, or where we fall in the birth order;
• the far-reaching spillover effects of repressing trauma – both individual and collective;
• the deep marks left by the attachment pattern formed in childhood, and how it returns in the relationships of adulthood;
• how family secrets divide us, distort reality and destroy trust, even when they remain buried.

‘Illuminating . . . A compassionate understanding of how we can recognise and reconcile the legacies we carry.’ Galit Atlas, psychoanalyst and author of Emotional Inheritance

‘A deep and comprehensive look at the ways that those ordinary people we call “parents” unwittingly share their pain with their children; and how important it is for all of us “children” to be aware of such historical pain, and explore ways to transform it.’ Gwen Adshead, forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist and author of The Devil You Know

‘A sage companion for anyone who has wanted, or needed, to confront the past and engage with the present. Inherited Fate is full of possibility and curiosity, and disrupts the avoidant gaze . . . Offers rigour to the ongoing conversation of embodied trauma.’ Maxine Mei-Fung Chung, psychotherapist and author of What Women Want