Our legacy burdens

In a sea of uncertainty, we can keep afloat by understanding the legacies that have led us to this current turmoil. Richard C. Schwartz and Martha Sweezy explain this in their book, Internal Family Systems Therapy:

“The United states carries a variety of legacy burdens some brought by early Europeans and some gathered as the country developed. We believe that the following legacy burdens are linked and have been particularly instrumental in shaping the nature of exiling in this country:

·     Racism: Used to justify the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, who were abducted from their homes.
·     Patriarchy: Sprang from European and religious roots.
·     Individualism: Produced by the survival struggles of pioneers, individualism fosters contempt for vulnerability and a belief that failure is a personal fault.
·     Materialism: Produced in part by the economic and physical hardships suffered by immigrants to the American continent, it is no doubt made worse by the routine, threatening cycles of financial boom and bust that typify capitalist economies.

These formidable legacy burdens exist along with others that relate to the long history of domestic and foreign wars as well as internecine efforts to exclude particular religious groups formerly Catholics and Jews now Muslims. In addition to these burdens people in the United states carry beliefs and emotions that derive from the history of their particular ethnic groups many come from immigrant groups that were repeatedly invaded starved subjected to natural disasters or oppressed for generations by scapegoating discrimination pogroms and Holocausts. Their progeny inherit the shamefulness fear despair grief loyalty rage and distrust of authority generated by these traumas often without a specific narrative to connect their feelings and beliefs to the burdens origins.”

Do you have any thoughts on this? How much do you believe that these legacy burdens are impacting your mental health?

I would love to hear from you. You can c​ontact me via this page, or add a comment below.

Chris Warren-Dickins
Psychotherapist & Author