Emotional Inheritance: How Your Family’s Trauma Becomes Your Child’s Story with Dr. Galit Atlas

by | Oct 29, 2025 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

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What if your childhood trauma isn’t just yours to carry? What if emotional inheritance means your kids are already carrying pieces of it too? 

Today I’m talking with Dr. Galit Atlas, whose book “Emotional Inheritance” completely changed how I think about the invisible legacies we pass to our children. We get real about something that happened to both of us: being told we couldn’t possibly have PTSD because we were “too functional.” (Spoiler: that’s not how trauma works.) We explore why some parents literally can’t tolerate their baby’s crying – not because they’re bad parents, but because their own pain was never held. Dr. Atlas shares the story of Naomi, a patient who insisted she had perfect parents but couldn’t figure out why she felt like an outsider everywhere. We talk about the burden of parents who say “I just want you to be happy” and why sitting with your child’s pain matters more than fixing it. 

Plus, we discuss how therapy might actually change your gene expression (yes, really) and why even the angriest, most difficult parts of what we inherited can become something different in our children’s lives.

 

More about Dr. Galit Atlas:

Dr. Galit Atlas is a psychoanalyst and clinical supervisor in private practice in Manhattan. She is a clinical assistant professor on the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and faculty at the National Training Program (NTP) and the Four-Year Adult training program at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) in New York City.

As an essayist and author, Atlas has published numerous articles and book chapters that focus primarily on gender and sexuality. She is the author of The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing and Belonging in Psychoanalysis (Routledge, October 2015) and Dramatic Dialogues (co-authored with Lewis Aron, Routledge, November 2017). She is the editor and a contributor to When Minds Meet: The Work of Lewis Aron (Routledge, November 2020). Her last book, Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients and The Legacy of Trauma, is an international bestseller, and translated into 27 languages. It won the Gradiva Award for Best Book of 2022.

 

Topics covered on Emotional Inheritance:

  1. What does emotional inheritance really mean, and why does Dr. Atlas call therapy an “epigenetic drug” that can actually change how our genes express themselves?
  2. Why do trauma survivors often struggle to recognize their own trauma, especially when they compare themselves to their parents’ experiences?
  3. What happens when well-meaning parents who desperately want their children to “just be happy” accidentally create a different kind of burden?
  4. Why is sitting with your child’s pain more important than fixing it, and how does this relate to emotional inheritance patterns?
  5. What is mentalization, and how does one patient’s reaction to a creepy doll reveal the profound impact of never experiencing true attunement?
  6. Why is the ability to integrate both the positive and negative aspects of our family legacy essential for breaking unhealthy cycles?
  7. What resilience and survival skills do we inherit alongside trauma, and how can we consciously pass on the strengths while healing the wounds?

 

Connect with Dr. Robyn Koslowitz:

 

Connect with Dr. Galit Atlas:

 

Resources from this episode:

 

More about Post Traumatic Parenting:

“How can I give my kids a normal childhood, when mine was anything but?” Post-Traumatic Parenting is the podcast for anyone who has ever asked themselves that question. Robyn Koslowitz, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and Post-Traumatic Parent, combines the fields of post-traumatic recovery and growth with our best understanding of how to raise Little Humans. Through interviews with experts in the fields of behavior science, psychology, trauma, and child development, as well as interviews with toy developers, children’s book authors, and anyone else who makes childhood a delight, Dr. Koslowitz explores how trauma impacts our parenting, and how to hack our traumas into superpowers and super-parenting.

Each week, Dr. Koslowitz unpacks how to survive and thrive as a Post-Traumatic Parent. She shares behind-the-scenes insights into the research that underlies what we know about parenting, child development, and trauma recovery. Each podcast provides actionable tips about how to transform our Post-Traumatic Parenting and how to turn our parenting journey into a post-traumatic growth experience. Dr. Koslowitz interviews some of the famous names in these fields, and some experts you’ve never heard of (but should have!). Ready to go from survivor to thriver? Ready to become the parent you’ve always dreamed of being? Join us!

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