If parents fail to do this [embrace their own unconscious wounds], they unwittingly pass on the weight of unhealed suffering to their children. It is not the psychic wounds of the parents which are, themselves, toxic to the children, but the lack of conscious encounter with those wounds that pervades the family unconscious and gets transferred to the next generation. If the previous generation hasn’t consciously suffered, the pain will be handed on, often unconsciously, to the next generation.

Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger