Keywords
Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy
memory reconsolidation
emotional regulation
intergenerational transmission
psychological adaptation
resilience
psychotherapeutic change
How to Cite
Abstract
Background. Contemporary research on transgenerational transmission increasingly demonstrates that emotional experiences inherited across generations influence emotion regulation, identity formation, interpersonal functioning, and psychological adaptation. However, most theoretical and empirical studies primarily conceptualize transgenerational transmission through the lens of trauma, emphasizing psychopathology and vulnerability. Such an approach overlooks the adaptive and resilience-promoting resources embedded within family and cultural histories. At the same time, advances in memory reconsolidation theory and contemporary models of emotional processing provide new opportunities for explaining psychotherapeutic change. Despite these developments, an integrative theoretical model describing how emotional transgenerational experience can be reorganized during psychotherapy remains insufficiently developed.
Objective. The study aimed to develop a theoretical model of the psychotherapeutic reorganization of emotional transgenerational experience within the framework of Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy by integrating contemporary concepts of intergenerational transmission, memory functioning, and memory reconsolidation mechanisms.
Methods. The study employed a theoretical and methodological design based on integrative conceptual analysis. Contemporary literature on transgenerational transmission, constructive theories of emotion, declarative and implicit memory systems, memory reconsolidation, and Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy was systematically synthesized. Conceptual modeling was applied to integrate these theoretical perspectives into a unified psychotherapeutic framework. The proposed model was constructed around the five-stage therapeutic process of Positive Psychotherapy and interpreted through the mechanisms of emotional memory updating and psychological regulation.
Results. An integrative model of psychotherapeutic reorganization of emotional transgenerational experience was developed. The model conceptualizes psychotherapy as a sequential process involving activation of implicit intergenerational emotional patterns, narrative reconstruction of family experience, identification of adaptive transgenerational resources, corrective emotional experience, symbolic integration, and consolidation of more adaptive forms of emotional self-regulation. The proposed framework explains psychotherapeutic change as the interaction between implicit emotional memory, autobiographical integration, semantic restructuring, and memory reconsolidation. Unlike trauma-centered approaches, the model conceptualizes transgenerational experience as a multidimensional construct incorporating both inherited vulnerabilities and resilience resources, thereby expanding theoretical understanding of psychological adaptation across generations.
Conclusions. The proposed model provides a theoretically grounded explanation of the psychological mechanisms underlying the transformation of emotional transgenerational experience during psychotherapy. Integrating Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy with contemporary memory reconsolidation theory broadens existing conceptualizations of psychotherapeutic change by emphasizing both the reduction of maladaptive emotional patterns and the activation of intergenerational adaptive resources. The model establishes a theoretical foundation for future empirical investigations and may facilitate the development of evidence-informed psychotherapeutic interventions aimed at enhancing emotional regulation, psychological resilience, and long-term psychological adaptation among individuals experiencing transgenerational emotional difficulties.
Keywords: transgenerational experience; Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy; memory reconsolidation; emotional regulation; intergenerational transmission; psychological adaptation; resilience; psychotherapeutic change.
Received: February 7, 2026
Accepted: April 21, 2026
Published: April 30, 2026
References
Apprey, M. (2016). Representing, theorizing, and reconfiguring the concept of transgenerational haunting in order to facilitate healing. In S. Grand & J. Salberg (Eds.), Transgenerational trauma and the other: Dialogues across history and difference (pp. 16–37). Routledge
Astill Wright, L., Horstmann, L., Holmes, E. A., & Bisson, J. I. (2021). Consolidation/reconsolidation therapies for the prevention and treatment of PTSD and re-experiencing: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Translational Psychiatry, 11(1), Article 453. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01570-w
Вakó, T., & Zana, K. (2018). The vehicle of transgenerational trauma: The transgenerational atmosphere. American Imago, 75(2), 271–285. https://doi.org/10.1353/aim.2018.0013
Barrett, L. F., Atzil, S., Bliss-Moreau, E., Chanes, L., Gendron, M., Hoemann, K., Katsumi, Y., Kleckner, I. R., Lindquist, K. A., Quigley, K. S., Satpute, A. B., Sennesh, E., Shaffer, C., Theriault, J. E., Tugade, M., & Westlin, C. (2025). The theory of constructed emotion: More than a feeling. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 20(3), 392–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916251319045
Békés, V., & Starrs, C. J. (2025). Transgenerational trauma: Perceived parental style, children's adaptational efforts, and mental health outcomes in second generation and third generation Holocaust offspring in Hungary. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 95(1), 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000758
Bowe, C., Thomas, C., & Mackey, P. (2025). Perspective to practice: Theoretical frameworks explaining intergenerational trauma, violence, and maltreatment and implications for the therapeutic response. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(3), Article 321. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22030321
Cacace, A., & Summers, S. J. (2025). Intergenerational trauma in phenomenological research—A systematic review. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 30(8), 1134–1169. https://doi.org/10.1080/15325024.2025.2490917
Ciesielski, R., Białek, O., Badecka, P., Ciesielska, Ż. (2026). Psychotherapy without borders: Positive and transcultural psychotherapy theory and clinical applications (Vol. 3). WAPP Press.
Chen, J., Fang, Z., Zhang, X., Zheng, Y., & Chen, Z. (2025). How fear memory is updated: From reconsolidation to extinction? Neuroscience Bulletin, 41(7), 1054–1084. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-025-01367-7
Connolly, A. (2011). Healing the wounds of our fathers: Intergenerational trauma, memory, symbolization, and narrative. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 56(5), 607–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5922.2011.01936.x
Ecker, B., & Bridges, S. K. (2020). How the science of memory reconsolidation advances the effectiveness and unification of psychotherapy. Clinical Social Work Journal, 48(3), 287–300. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-020-00754-z
Ecker, B., & Vaz, A. (2022). Memory reconsolidation and the crisis of mechanism in psychotherapy. New Ideas in Psychology, 66, Article 100945. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2022.100945
Fossion, P., Leys, C., Vandeleur, C., Kempenaers, C., Braun, S., Verbanck, P., & Linkowski, P. (2015). Transgenerational transmission of trauma in families of Holocaust survivors: The consequences of extreme family functioning on resilience, sense of coherence, anxiety and depression. Journal of Affective Disorders, 171, 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.08.054
Frijda, N. H. (2009). Emotion experience and its varieties. Emotion Review, 1(3), 264–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073909103595
Hanna, D., Dempster, M., Dyer, K., Lyons, E., & Devaney, L. (2012). Young people's transgenerational issues in Northern Ireland: A report for the Commission for Victims and Survivors (CVSNI). School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast.
Huang, T., Hill, C. E., Strauss, N., Heyman, M., & Hussain, M. (2016). Corrective relational experiences in psychodynamic-interpersonal psychotherapy: Antecedents, types, and consequences. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 63(2), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000132
Isobel, S., Goodyear, M., Furness, T., & Foster, K. (2019). Preventing intergenerational trauma transmission: A critical interpretive synthesis. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(7–8), 1100–1113. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14735
Kellermann, N. P. F. (2001). The long-term psychological effects and treatment of Holocaust trauma. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 6(3), 197–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/108114401753201660
Kindt, M., & Van Emmerik, A. A. P. (2016). New avenues for treating emotional memory disorders: Towards a reconsolidation intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder. Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, 6(4), 283–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/2045125316644541
Lane, R. D., Ryan, L., Nadel, L., & Greenberg, L. S. (2015). Memory reconsolidation, emotional arousal, and the process of change in psychotherapy: New insights from brain science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38, Article e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14000041
Lytvynenko, O., & Tereshchenko, O. (2024). Working with transgenerational trauma in Positive and Transcultural Psychotherapy. The Global Psychotherapist, 4(2), 62–67. https://doi.org/10.52982/lkj234
Nader, K., Hardt, O., & Lanius, R. (2013). Memory as a new therapeutic target. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 15(4), 475–486. https://doi.org/10.31887/DCNS.2013.15.4/knader
Nakamura, K., & Iwakabe, S. (2018). Corrective emotional experience in an integrative affect-focused therapy: Building a preliminary model using task analysis. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 25(2), 322–337. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2150
Neisser, U. (1997). The roots of self: The typical development of autobiographical memory. In U. Neisser & R. Fivush (Eds.), The remembering self: Construction and accuracy in the self-narrative (pp. 1–18). Cambridge University Press.
Oren, G., Shoshani, A., Samra, N., Verbeke, W., Vrticka, P., Aisnberg-Shafran, D., & Ein-Dor, T. (2025). From trauma to resilience: Psychological and epigenetic adaptations in the third generation of Holocaust survivors. Scientific Reports, 15, Article 19015. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-12085-5
Peseschkian, H., & Remmers, A. (2020). Positive psychotherapy: An introduction. In E. Messias, H. Peseschkian, & C. Cagande (Eds.), Positive psychiatry, psychotherapy and psychology (pp. 11–32). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33264-8
Praško, J., Vaněk, J., Hodný, F., Krone, I., Burkauskas, J., Gečaitė-Stončienė, J., Ābeltiņa, M., Juškienė, A., Zaťková, M., Bite, I., Šlepecký, M., Pásztor, J., Doubek, P., & Ocisková, M. (2025). Transgenerational trauma and schema therapy: Imagery rescripting and chairwork in practice. Neuroendocrinology Letters, 46(2), 96–106.
Remmers, A. (2023). Attachment, trauma, and ways to inner confidence in positive psychodynamic therapy. The Global Psychotherapist, 3(2), 70–75. https://doi.org/10.52982/lkj200
Rubinstein, D., Abargil, M., Duek, O., & Harpaz-Rotem, I. (2025). RESET post-traumatic stress disorder: Clinical protocol integrating reconsolidation, exposure, short-term emotional transformation. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 16(1), Article 2540141. https://doi.org/10.1080/20008066.2025.2540141
Ryan, L., Cox, C., Hayes, S. M., & Nadel, L. (2008). Hippocampal activation during episodic and semantic memory retrieval: Comparing category production and category cued recall. Neuropsychologia, 46(8), 2109–2121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.02.030
Schacter, D. L., Chiu, C. Y. P., & Ochsner, K. N. (1993). Implicit memory: A selective review. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 16, 159–182. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ne.16.030193.001111
Soeter, M., & Kindt, M. (2013). High trait anxiety: A challenge for disrupting fear memory reconsolidation. PLoS ONE, 8(11), Article e75239. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0075239
Starrs, C. J., & Békés, V. (2025). Historical intergenerational trauma transmission model: A comprehensive framework of family and offspring processes of transgenerational trauma. Traumatology, 31(2), 243–251. https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000505
Subic-Wrana, C., Greenberg, L. S., Lane, R. D., Michal, M., Wiltink, J., & Beutel, M. E. (2016). Affective change in psychodynamic psychotherapy: Theoretical models and clinical approaches to changing emotions. Zeitschrift für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie, 62(3), 207–223. https://doi.org/10.13109/zptm.2016.62.3.207
Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135114
Weingarten, K. (2004). Witnessing the effects of political violence in families: Mechanisms of intergenerational transmission and clinical interventions. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2004.tb01221.x
Werringloer, R.-C. (2023). Operationalizing and visualizing psychodynamics in Positive Psychotherapy (PPT). The Global Psychotherapist, 3(2), 76–88. https://doi.org/10.52982/lkj201
Whiting, J. B., Fife, S. T., Davis, S. D., Ogles, B. M., & Bailey, R. J. (2025). Corrective experiencing as a common factor in couple therapy: Creating new and positive emotions in relationships. Family Process, 64(4), Article e70087. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.70087
Wilson-Mendenhall, C. D., Barrett, L. F., & Barsalou, L. W. (2013). Situating emotional experience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7, Article 764. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00764
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2026 Olha Tereshchenko