Transgenerational Ghosts: How Unspoken Traumas of Migration Live On

Migration is never just the story of one person. It is also the story of their children, and often their children’s children. Even when unspoken, the experiences of leaving home, of loss, exile, and survival, have a way of crossing generations—living on as what some psychoanalysts call transgenerational ghosts.

These “ghosts” are not literal spirits. They are fragments of memory, emotion, and unprocessed grief that silently inhabit families. A parent who endured humiliation in the new land may never speak of it, but the child may grow up with a vague sense of shame. A grandparent’s nostalgia may echo as an unexplainable sadness in the next generation. What is not mourned does not simply vanish—it finds other ways of being carried; Transgenerational Ghosts: How Unspoken Traumas of Migration Live On.

Psychoanalysis shows us that the unconscious is not private property. It stretches across generations, woven through gestures, silences, and the invisible bonds of loyalty. Children may unconsciously take on the task of “repairing” what was lost—by succeeding where parents could not, or by living out dreams that were never fulfilled. At times, they may even feel they are living someone else’s life, haunted by desires that are not their own.

But these inherited ghosts are not only burdens. They can also be guides. To recognize them is to give shape to the invisible, to transform silence into story. By naming what has been transmitted, families can begin to mourn together—and in mourning, to free the next generation to live more fully their own lives.

Therapy provides a space for this work. Here, the unspoken grief of migration can be heard, not as a curse passed down, but as a shared human experience that deserves compassion and understanding.

If you feel that your struggles echo those of your parents or grandparents, therapy can offer a safe place to explore these hidden transmissions and begin to transform them into something more life-giving.