It Didn't Start with You

How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

De: Mark Wolynn

Narrado por: Mark Wolynn

A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field

Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood.

As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

Includes a bonus PDF with diagrams and writing exercises

Reseñas de la Crítica

One of Healthline’s 13 Best Mental Health Books of 2022
One of Cosmopolitan’s 15 Books About Mental Health That Everyone Should Read
One of Men’s Health’s 20 Best Mental Health Books to Read in 2022
One of Choosing Therapy’s 10 Best PTSD & Trauma Books for 2021
Winner of the 2016 Nautilus Book Award in Psychology
Finalist for the 2016 Books for a Better Life Award

“Mark Wolynn does a masterful job of illuminating the ways in which our ancestors’ unresolved suffering, often unknown to us, disables us and binds us painfully to them. He gives us the tools and skills—an approach that combines understanding, imaginative dialogues, and compassionate reconnection—to free and heal ourselves.”
—James S. Gordon, MD, author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression

“It Didn’t Start with You takes us a big step forward, advancing the fields of trauma therapy, mindfulness applications, and human understanding. It is a bold, creative, and compassionate work.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

“This groundbreaking book offers a compelling understanding of inherited trauma and fresh, powerful tools for relieving its suffering. Mark Wolynn is a wise and trustworthy guide on the journey toward healing.”
—Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

“Mark Wolynn’s extraordinary book cracks the secret code of families and proves that you can go home again—once you understand how history made you. Full of life-changing stories, powerful insights, and practical tools for personal healing, It Didn't Start With You deserves a place on your bookshelf next to Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child and Dan Siegel’s The Developing Mind. You’ll never see your family the same way again.”
—Mark Matousek, author of Ethical Wisdom

“Bridging both neuroscience and psychodynamic thinking, It Didn’t Start with You provides the reader with Mark Wolynn’s hard-earned toolbox of do-it-yourself clinical aids and provocative insights.”
—Jess P. Shatkin, MD, MPH, Vice Chair for Education at NYU Langone Medical Center’s Child Study Center and author of Child & Adolescent Mental Health

“After reading It Didn’t Start with You, I found myself immediately able to apply Mark Wolynn’s techniques with my patients and saw incredible results, in a shorter time than with traditional psychotherapeutic techniques. I encourage you to read this book. It’s truly cutting edge.”
—Alexanndra Kreps, MD

New approaches to self discovery and healing

Wolynn's basic theory is that we sometimes inherit trauma from people throughout our family tree, not just in our immediate family, but from people in our extended family, maybe even from previous generations. Pain and psychological issues can be passed down from one generation to the next even when the source of that pain has been shrouded in silence. You might have a fear of being suffocated, for example, because of the trauma experienced by a great-grandparent who died by asphyxiation, even if you can't recall ever hearing about his or her life and death. The process by which this happens is somewhat mysterious, but Wolynn presents it in a very eloquent and articulate way. Whatever the mechanism, these traumas can block us off from our own vitality and happiness, causing all kinds of psychological issues and health problems. The way to reclaim that vitality is by healing the divide between ourselves and disowned family members, by reaching out to them for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation. Wolynn's techniques for doing that are effective. I've gone through the exercises and have had some amazing insights.

I do share some of the concerns expressed by other reviewers of this book; namely, that it's not necessarily a good idea to attempt reconciliation with a parent (or other family member) who's abused you in the past, or is actively hostile to you in the present. So many of Wolynn's examples are of people who inadvertently harmed us due to circumstances out of their control--you may have fears of abandonment because your mother was hospitalized while you were a child, and so on. What about people who have inherited trauma from family members who inflicted pain and abuse on the people around them? I think the ideas in this book are still valid, but I would like to hear the author speak more directly on the topic of abuse and neglect. It would be a GREAT subject for a follow-up book.

Very insightful and well done

Where does It Didn't Start with You rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top 10 all time.

What did you like best about this story?

I really enjoyed this book as it gave me a new way of looking at our family stories. The examples throughout the book offered ideas and valuable insight.

A new idea that works

The book leads you through a very impressive way of releasing trauma and leading to an inner peace.
It is based on the discovery of the newest brain research (information destined to the more critical listeners) and even without doing the written exercises it clarifies a lot. The exercises lead you even a step further.
Highly recommended for those who want to change something in their lives, who are fed up with stumbling again and again over the same problems.

Not good for abuse survivors

The author does not have any experience or story telling relatable for people with abusive parents or grandparents. Most of the trauma stories are about Holocaust survivors, car crashes, separations at birth or involuntary but ultimately having loving or supportive parents or grandparents. This is not a book for survivors of any type of abuse, because it’s gear towards understanding why a parent is a certain way. Most child abuse survivors already tend to try to excuse their abuser’s behavior. It can be healing to understand but there is a lot more to the healing process and this book doesn’t give any guidance in such matters. The exercises include visualizing your parent and taking note of your body’s response. If you response is to stay closed off that is your fault not your parents. That is not true when it comes to an abusive parent and is not healing for a person trying to work through those kind of traumas.
This is a good book for people with other kinds of trauma and healthy relationships with their family.

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