The Emotional DNA We Inherit: How Our Ancestors' Bonds Shape Who We Are - Helen Parker-Drabble | Author | Speaker | Former counsellor

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Emotional DNA refers to psychological and attachment patterns inherited through learned behaviours, epigenetic changes, and family dynamics—not just genetics
Attachment theory reveals how early bonds become blueprints for lifelong relationships, passed from generation to generation through parenting patterns
Epigenetic research proves trauma leaves biological marks on DNA that can be inherited for several generations—but these marks are reversible
Your family tree maps emotional inheritance alongside factual data—showing patterns of connection, disconnection, and wounds passed down like heirlooms
Change is possible: Both attachment styles and epigenetic marks can shift through healing experiences, therapy, and conscious parenting choices
Genealogy becomes healing when you understand not just who your ancestors were, but how their emotional patterns shaped you—and how you can choose differently

When I trace my finger along the branches of my family tree, I see more than names and dates. I see patterns of connection and disconnection, love expressed and withheld, wounds passed down like heirlooms nobody wanted. Understanding attachment theory transforms genealogy from a collection of facts into a map of emotional inheritance.

What Is Emotional DNA?

Emotional DNA refers to the psychological and attachment patterns we inherit from previous generations through three interconnected pathways: learned behaviours, epigenetic changes, and family dynamics.

Unlike genetic DNA—which determines physical traits like eye colour and height—emotional DNA shapes how we relate, cope with stress, express emotion, and connect in relationships. It’s the invisible inheritance that explains why certain patterns (difficulty trusting, fear of abandonment, emotional withdrawal) appear generation after generation, even when family members consciously try to behave differently.

Think of emotional DNA as the emotional blueprint passed from parent to child, often unconsciously. A grandmother who couldn’t express affection may have learned that emotional distance from her own mother, who learned it from hers. Each generation inherits not just the behaviour but the underlying attachment wounds that created it.

The term ’emotional DNA’ captures something profound: These patterns feel as fundamental as genetic inheritance—yet understanding them is the first step toward breaking free from these patterns.

The Science of Our First Bonds

Attachment theory, pioneered by psychiatrist John Bowlby in the 1950s and expanded by developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s, reveals a profound truth: the quality of our earliest relationships becomes the blueprint for how we connect throughout our lives.

Bowlby’s research with institutionalised children demonstrated that babies need more than physical care—they require consistent emotional attunement from caregivers to develop healthily. His groundbreaking work established that ‘attachment behaviour’ (seeking proximity to caregivers when distressed) is a biological survival mechanism, as essential as food or warmth.

Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’ experiments in the 1970s identified distinct attachment patterns:

Secure attachment develops when babies experience consistent, sensitive caregiving. These children learn they can rely on others, regulate their emotions effectively, and develop healthy self-worth. They cry when separated from caregivers but are quickly soothed upon reunion.

Insecure attachment patterns emerge when caregivers are emotionally unavailable, inconsistent, or harmful:

Anxious-ambivalent attachment: develops when care is unpredictable (sometimes responsive, sometimes not), creating children who cling desperately and struggle to be soothed
Avoidant attachment: develops when caregivers consistently dismiss emotional needs, creating children who learn to suppress feelings and appear independent
Disorganised attachment: develops when caregivers are frightening or frightened themselves, creating children with no coherent strategy for seeking comfort

According to research by Mary Main and colleagues in the 1980s, these attachment patterns show remarkable stability across the lifespan. Adults’ attachment styles, measured through the Adult Attachment Interview, strongly predict how they’ll parent their own children—creating intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns.

These aren’t just psychological concepts—they’re the invisible threads connecting generations of your family.

Reading the Emotional Currents in Your Family Tree

Traditional genealogy focuses on establishing facts: who married whom, where they lived, when they died. But attachment theory encourages us to ask deeper questions: Why did great-grandmother seem so emotionally distant in every family photo? What made a grandfather unable to express affection to his children? Why do certain relationship patterns—difficulty trusting, fear of abandonment, emotional withdrawal—appear generation after generation?

Attachment theory offers answers. Research consistently shows that parents’ own attachment histories powerfully influence how they parent. Studies by van IJzendoorn (1995) found a 75% correspondence between parents’ attachment classifications and their children’s—demonstrating that attachment patterns pass through families with remarkable consistency.

An emotionally neglected mother may struggle to provide the warmth her children need, not from lack of love but from never having learned that emotional language herself. Research by Fraiberg, Adelson, and Shapiro (1975) called these ‘ghosts in the nursery’—unresolved traumas from a parent’s past that haunt their relationship with their own children.

A father whose own parents were unpredictable might become either overly controlling (trying to create the safety he lacked) or emotionally checked out (repeating the only parenting pattern he knows), perpetuating cycles he never chose.

When you research your family tree, look for the evidence of attachment disruptions. Uncovering these patterns in your own family history provides a systematic framework for identifying what shaped your ancestors—and what you’ve inherited:

Children raised in institutions, workhouses, or by relatives (indicating separation from primary caregivers)
Multiple infant or child deaths (creating traumatised, fearful parents)
Wars, migrations, or economic crises that separated families
Mental illness, addiction, or domestic violence (indicating caregivers unable to provide consistent attunement)
Family estrangements spanning generations

These historical facts aren’t just data points—they’re attachment wounds that shaped how your ancestors parented, which shaped how their children parented, creating the emotional inheritance you received.

How Does Emotional DNA Get Passed Down?

Emotional DNA transmits through three interconnected mechanisms:

1. Learned Behaviours and Modelling

Children learn how to ‘do’ relationships by watching their parents. If your grandmother never saw her parents express physical affection, she likely didn’t know how to cuddle her own children—not because she didn’t love them, but because the behaviour wasn’t in her emotional vocabulary.

These learned patterns operate largely unconsciously. You might swear you’ll never parent like your own parents did, yet find yourself using their exact phrases or repeating their mistakes under stress. The patterns are grooved deeply through years of observation and experience.

2. Epigenetic Changes

Here’s where family history gets even more fascinating: these patterns aren’t just psychological—they’re written into our very cells through epigenetic modifications.

Epigenetic research reveals that traumatic experiences and attachment disruptions can leave chemical marks on our DNA through processes like DNA methylation and histone modification. According to research by Yehuda and colleagues (2016), these biological changes can be inherited for several generations, influencing everything from stress reactivity to caregiving capacity.

Groundbreaking studies by Meaney and colleagues (2004) showed that rat mothers’ grooming behaviour literally changed their offspring’s stress response genes through epigenetic mechanisms. Highly groomed pups developed different DNA methylation patterns than neglected pups—and these patterns persisted into adulthood, affecting how they in turn parented their own offspring.

Human studies increasingly support similar mechanisms. Research by Yehuda et al. (2016) found that children of Holocaust survivors showed epigenetic changes associated with stress regulation—despite never experiencing the Holocaust themselves. The trauma their parents endured left biological traces that influenced the next generation’s physiology.

Studies of the Dutch Hunger Winter (1944-45) revealed that children conceived during famine showed different DNA methylation patterns decades later, affecting their metabolism and disease risk (Heijmans et al., 2008). Their mothers’ starvation experience literally changed the biological inheritance passed to the next generation.

3. Intergenerational Family Dynamics

Families develop unspoken rules, roles, and patterns that persist across generations. If expressing anger was forbidden in your grandparents’ household, that rule may continue in your parents’ home and influence your own relationships—even if no one consciously teaches it.

Family therapist Murray Bowen described how anxiety transmits through family systems across generations. The ‘family projection process’ occurs when parents unconsciously transmit their anxieties and attachment wounds onto children, who then carry these emotional burdens forward.

These three mechanisms—learned behaviour, epigenetic changes, and family dynamics—work together to create what we call emotional DNA: patterns that feel as fundamental as genetic inheritance but are actually the product of experience transmitted across generations.

When Biology Meets Biography

The integration of attachment research with epigenetics reveals something remarkable: your grandmother’s childhood experiences of neglect or trauma didn’t just shape her psychology—they may have altered her biology in ways that influenced your parent, and potentially you.

But—and this is crucial—we’re not prisoners of our inheritance. Both attachment styles and epigenetic marks can shift in response to healing experiences, therapy, and conscious efforts to parent differently.

Research by Dozier and colleagues (2005) demonstrates that attachment-based interventions with high-risk parents can interrupt intergenerational transmission of insecure attachment, with their children showing more secure attachment despite the parents’ own attachment wounds.

Studies show that epigenetic marks are reversible. According to research by Weaver et al. (2004), neglected rat pups who received nurturing care from foster mothers showed reversal of stress-related epigenetic changes. The biological marks of early trauma weren’t permanent—they responded to healing experiences.

Our early relationships don’t seal our fate; they’re the starting point, not the ending.

Patterns to Look for in Your Family History

As you explore your family tree through this lens, watch for recurring themes:

Stories of loss, separation, or trauma that echo through generations:

Child deaths that created fearful, overprotective parents
Institutional separations (workhouses, sanatoriums, boarding schools) that disrupted attachment
Wars that removed fathers or traumatised returning soldiers
Migrations that severed extended family support networks
Economic crises that forced children into work or care by relatives

Patterns of mental health difficulties that seem to run in the family:

Depression appearing across multiple generations
Addiction following family lines
Anxiety, fearfulness, or hypervigilance transmitted from parent to child
Relationship difficulties, divorces, or estrangements repeating generationally (Victorian women, like Mary, and her daughter Sarah, experienced these traumas)

But also look for the bright spots—ancestors who broke harmful cycles, who chose to parent with intention despite their own wounds:

The grandmother who, despite her harsh upbringing, showed gentleness to her children
The father who sought help for his addiction rather than passing it forward
The mother who broke patterns of emotional distance to create warm connections with her children

Pay attention to family secrets, the stories nobody tells. Often these hidden narratives carry the weight of unresolved attachment trauma—abuse, illegitimacy, mental illness, suicide, institutionalisation—influencing family dynamics in ways that remain invisible until someone starts asking questions.

Census records may show children living with grandparents or relatives rather than parents. Death certificates may reveal infant or maternal deaths that traumatised surviving family members. Military records may document wars that created attachment disruptions. Asylum records may show mental illness that affected a parent’s capacity to provide consistent care.

Each of these historical facts represents an attachment wound that shaped emotional inheritance across generations.

From Understanding to Healing

This isn’t just an academic exercise. Understanding your family’s attachment patterns can be profoundly healing.

When you share these insights with mental health practitioners, you’re providing a roadmap of intergenerational patterns that can guide therapeutic work. You’re identifying not just where the wounds originated but where healing might begin.

Some families discover ancestors who made heroic efforts at reparative parenting—grandparents who, despite their own harsh upbringings, chose gentleness with their children. These stories of resilience and intentional change remind us that we, too, can redirect our family’s emotional trajectory.

According to research by Fonagy and colleagues (1991), ‘earned secure attachment’ is possible—adults can develop secure attachment patterns through therapy, healing relationships, or reflective work, despite insecure childhoods. These individuals can then parent securely, breaking intergenerational cycles.

Understanding your family’s emotional DNA provides:

Compassion for ancestors whose parenting limitations stemmed from their own wounds
Context for your own struggles with relationships, emotions, or parenting
Direction for healing work that addresses root causes, not just symptoms
Hope that patterns can change, evidenced by ancestors who broke cycles
Purpose in transforming inheritance for future generations

Can You Change Your Emotional DNA?

Yes—absolutely, unequivocally, yes.

While emotional DNA feels as fixed as genetic inheritance, it’s fundamentally different because it’s shaped by experience. And experience can be transformed.

Attachment styles can change. Research using the Adult Attachment Interview shows that approximately 25-30% of adults have ‘earned secure attachment’—they experienced insecure attachment as children but developed secure attachment patterns as adults through healing relationships, therapy, or reflective work (Roisman et al., 2002).

Epigenetic marks are reversible. Studies demonstrate that environmental changes, therapy, and even mindfulness practices can alter DNA methylation patterns. The biological traces of trauma aren’t permanent sentences—they respond to healing experiences (Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018).

Conscious parenting breaks cycles. Attachment-based parenting interventions show that even parents with significant attachment wounds can learn to provide secure attachment for their children. The key is self-awareness, understanding your own attachment history, and making conscious choices rather than repeating automatic patterns (Steele & Steele, 2008).

What creates change:

Therapy, particularly attachment-focused approaches, trauma therapy, or psychodynamic work that addresses root causes
Healing relationships with partners, friends, or mentors who model secure attachment
Reflective capacity—the ability to think about your own thinking, understand how your past shapes your present, and make conscious choices
Reparative experiences that provide what you didn’t receive as a child
Intentional parenting that breaks autopilot responses and creates new patterns

The grandmother who couldn’t say ‘I love you’ might have been protecting herself with the only defence she knew—but you can learn to speak that emotional language she couldn’t. The father who worked endless hours might have been showing love in the only way his own attachment wounds allowed—but you can express love differently.

Change isn’t easy. Automatic patterns feel comfortable even when they’re harmful. But with awareness, support, and sustained effort, you can transform your emotional DNA and pass forward healthier patterns to future generations.

Beyond Names and Dates

Viewing genealogy through the lens of attachment theory transforms it from a hobby to a healing process. We’re not just collecting ancestors like stamps in an album. We’re understanding the emotional currents that shaped them and continue to shape us.

We’re recognising that the grandmother who couldn’t say ‘I love you’ might have been protecting herself with the only defence she knew. We’re seeing that the father who worked endless hours might have been showing love in the only way his attachment wounds allowed.

We’re tracing patterns of resilience alongside patterns of trauma, finding ancestors who broke cycles and proved that change is possible. We’re gathering evidence that healing isn’t just psychological theory—it’s family history.

This integrative approach, combining family history with psychological understanding, offers something precious: compassion for our ancestors and insight into ourselves. It reveals how family stories, caregiving patterns, and emotional legacies shape who we are whilst pointing toward intentional change for future generations.

Our family trees are more than genealogical charts. They’re maps of human connection, showing where love flowed freely and where it got dammed up by trauma and loss. By understanding these patterns, we don’t just honour our ancestors’ names—we understand their hearts. And in understanding them, we gain the power to heal patterns that may have persisted for generations, creating new legacies of secure connection for those who come after us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is emotional DNA?

Emotional DNA refers to the psychological and attachment patterns inherited from previous generations through learned behaviours, epigenetic changes, and family dynamics. Unlike genetic DNA (which determines physical traits), emotional DNA shapes how we relate in relationships, cope with stress, express emotions, and connect with others.

These patterns are passed from parent to child through three interconnected mechanisms: modelling and learned behaviour (children observe and absorb their parents’ relationship patterns), epigenetic changes (trauma and stress alter gene expression through chemical modifications to DNA), and family dynamics (unspoken family rules and roles that persist across generations).

The term ’emotional DNA’ captures how fundamental these patterns feel—as unchangeable as genetic inheritance—whilst acknowledging they’re actually the product of experience that can be transformed through awareness and healing.

How does attachment theory relate to genealogy?

Attachment theory transforms genealogy from collecting facts about ancestors into understanding the emotional patterns that shaped your family across generations.

Traditional genealogy asks: Who married whom? Where did they live? When did they die?

Attachment-informed genealogy asks: What were their early experiences of care? What traumas or losses shaped their capacity to parent? What patterns of connection or disconnection passed through generations? How did their attachment wounds influence the emotional inheritance you received?

When researching your family tree, look for evidence of attachment disruptions: children raised in institutions or by relatives (separation from primary caregivers), multiple infant deaths (traumatised, fearful parents), wars or migrations (family separations), mental illness or addiction (caregivers unable to provide consistent attunement).

These aren’t just historical facts—they’re attachment wounds that shaped how your ancestors parented, which influenced the next generation’s parenting, creating the emotional patterns you inherited. Understanding these patterns provides context for your own struggles with relationships, parenting, or emotional regulation.

Genealogy guided by attachment theory becomes a therapeutic tool: you’re mapping not just your biological inheritance but your emotional inheritance, identifying where healing might begin.

Can emotional patterns be changed?

Yes. Unlike genetic DNA, emotional DNA is shaped by experience—and experience can be transformed.

Research evidence for change:

Attachment styles can shift. Studies show approximately 25-30% of adults develop ‘earned secure attachment’—they experienced insecure attachment as children but created secure patterns as adults through therapy, healing relationships, or reflective work (Roisman et al., 2002).

Epigenetic marks are reversible. Research demonstrates that environmental changes, therapy, and even mindfulness practices can alter DNA methylation patterns created by trauma (Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018). The biological traces aren’t permanent—they respond to healing experiences.

Intergenerational cycles can break. Attachment-based interventions show that parents with significant attachment wounds can learn to provide secure attachment for their children through self-awareness and conscious parenting (Steele & Steele, 2008).

What creates change:

Therapy (particularly trauma-focused or attachment-focused approaches)
Healing relationships that model secure attachment
Reflective capacity—understanding how your past shapes your present
Reparative experiences providing what you didn’t receive as a child
Conscious, intentional parenting rather than automatic pattern repetition

You’re not destined to repeat your ancestors’ patterns. With awareness, support, and sustained effort, you can transform your emotional DNA and create new legacies for future generations.

About A Victorian’s Inheritance

What psychological inheritance have you received from your ancestors?

We inherit more than heirlooms. The struggles, triumphs, and even traumas of our forebears can be handed down through generations, shaping who we are.

In A Victorian’s Inheritance, family historian and former counsellor Helen Parker-Drabble brings to life the working-class world of her Victorian grandfather, uncovering how his mother’s hardships, bereavements and alcoholism in 19th-century England left their indelible mark on him. Through a unique blend of family history, social analysis, and a groundbreaking approach, she reveals how addiction, grief, and mental health challenges can influence future generations.

This deeply personal, yet relatable, book invites you to reflect on your own family’s untold stories. Whether you’re an avid genealogist, a lover of Victorian history, or simply curious about how your ancestors’ lives have shaped your own, A Victorian’s Inheritance will inspire you to discover the hidden legacies of your family and better understand yourself and your relations.

Ask for A Victorian’s Inheritance at your local library, visit the shop and support me as an independent author, or visit your favourite book shop.

About the Author

Helen Parker-Drabble is an author and ‘geneatherapist’ who combines genealogical research with psychological insights to understand how historical events shaped family patterns across generations.

A former counsellor with a Diploma in Counselling, Helen developed the geneatherapy methodology—an integrative approach that applies psychological theory to family history research. Her work explores how trauma, attachment patterns, and mental health challenges transmit through families, offering both historical understanding and pathways to healing for present and future generations.

Helen is the author of A Victorian’s Inheritance (exploring her grandfather Walter Parker’s psychological inheritance from his alcoholic mother in Victorian England) and ‘Yet’: A Story of Triumph Over Childhood Separation, Trauma, and Disability (telling her father Harry Drabble’s story of institutionalisation due to bovine tuberculosis in 1930s Sheffield).

Through her writing, speaking, and research, Helen helps individuals understand the emotional DNA they’ve inherited and empowers them to transform patterns for future generations.

Cover of A Victorian’s Inheritance by Helen Parker-Drabble

Author Helen Parker -Drabble Who Do I Think You Were?®

The Emotional DNA We Inherit: How Our Ancestors’ Bonds Shape Who We Are