As a 61-year-old therapist with 23 years in the field, I find myself to be a transitional character in our current cultural revolution. Every generation has had its cultural revolutions, where the younger generation challenged the status quo. We are seeing this today with many people choosing to go “no or low contact” with their family members or to stay single rather than settle. Many people are calling it a trend and blaming therapists and social media. However, stepping away from unhealthy relationships is much bigger than that and has been brewing for a while.
We are at a time in history where many people are going to therapy, learning about themselves, and choosing to interact with the world differently. While people have sought psychological help throughout the ages, it has only been since the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, in which mental health has been treated the same as physical health by insurance companies, that going to therapy has become the norm. With access to therapy, people have been examining their behavioral patterns and the traumas passed down through previous generations. The individuals who engage in this work often find that they improve their communication skills, boundaries, and self-care, which challenge the dynamics of their relationships and the status quo.
Research in the fields of psychology, mental health, and parenting has exploded since the 1980s. We have a much better understanding of how much of our behavior is rooted in how we were treated by others, particularly as children. We know much more about how children’s brains develop, what causes trauma, and what fosters resilience. Emerging research suggests that trauma lives in the body, affects the nervous system, re-wires the brain, and causes illnesses such as autoimmune diseases. People and organizations are using this research to inform practices, to enhance healthy social-emotional learning, and to protect children from harm.
So today, we are seeing adults examining their lives, how they were raised, and how they want to be now. They are calling out the ways they were harmed and are looking for some accountability from those who harmed them. They are not looking for perfection; they are looking for validation and changed behavior. This isn’t about one thing long ago; it is about ongoing behavior that continues to cause harm. A common pattern I am seeing is that grandparents are not respecting the boundaries of their adult children, who now have children of their own. Many young parents are struggling with the lack of support from their parents, despite remembering how involved their own grandparents were when they were young.
This article isn’t strictly about people going no contact with family members or choosing to stay single. It is about a change in expectations within our society. In my lifetime, things that we would say when I was a child and an adolescent are no longer acceptable. Slurs about race, gender, sexuality, intelligence, body size, and disabilities are not commonly accepted anymore. This shift in language reflects a deeper change; stigmatizing language is out, and compassionate language is in.
Alongside this, we are also seeing more people talking openly about their mental health and trauma histories. We are becoming a trauma-conscious society. This means that there is an increased awareness of the impact of trauma on the person’s nervous system. There is a shift in mindset from “what is wrong with you” to “what happened to you.” With this validation that harm was done to them, they are learning to self-advocate, create boundaries, and avoid re-traumatization.
They are recognizing that many of the old ways of communicating and doing things were harmful. There is a recognition of the difference between intention and impact. It is not enough that someone didn’t intend to cause harm; the impact also needs to be acknowledged. Those who are willing to see beneath the curtain of quirks and behavior see neurodivergence, trauma, neglect, and emotional immaturity. Choosing to perceive others through those lenses leads to more compassion and understanding rather than annoyance or rejection.
The younger generations are much more accepting of diversity, and they want us to get on board. They see the world with all its gradations of color and think that older generations have a limited palette to work with. They are challenging the status quo and inviting older generations to expand their knowledge, understanding, and compassion. They are pushing the world to mature socially and emotionally. In my practice, I see clients exploring all kinds of relationships. Many are more focused on a person’s essence rather than their anatomy. They are dressing however they want, regardless of gender norms. They are exploring other ways of making a life with nontraditional living arrangements and income streams. They are refusing to hide their lifestyles, needs, and accommodations.
When there is a change in how things are done, there tend to be those who lag behind, clinging to the old ways. We are seeing this in the male loneliness epidemic and parental estrangement. In many cases, a common thread is a gap in social-emotional maturity. Social-emotional maturity is having the ability to understand, express, and manage emotions while demonstrating empathy and building positive relationships with others. Social-emotional maturity requires self-regulation, accountability, empathy, openness, resilience, and the ability to build healthy relationships and maintain independence. Women are asking men to meet them where they are emotionally, to be an equal partner, to bring value to their lives, not be another mother to them. Adult children are asking their parents something similar. They want their parent to understand that the world has changed, that parenting has changed. They want their parents to respect them as adults who are forging a new path. Adult children don’t want to go no contact with their parents or other family members; they want them to step up, take responsibility, be accountable, and be open to new ways of seeing and interacting with the world generally and them specifically.
As a therapist, I help my clients to break long-standing patterns of unhealthy behavior, to learn to advocate for themselves, and to challenge toxic and abusive behaviors. I help them to improve their communication skills, identify boundaries, and engage in self-care. I help them to learn to love themselves. When people love themselves, like Frank’s Hot Sauce, they put that shit on everything, and what could be better than that?!
I am proud to be both a witness to and a bridge between generations in this cultural shift. As a therapist, I am poised to help people of all ages shift their perspective and make the changes in their lives to engage in relationships and to raise their children in a healthier way. This is how we begin to break the cycle of generational trauma, and I am here for it!