#WHAT IS INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA HOW TO#

‘I noticed in the fatigue clinic that a lot of tired people really struggle with switching off’ Vincent Dearyīut who he is, fundamentally, has not changed, he says. Now he was an author, too, an acclaimed one.

#WHAT IS INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA HOW TO#

How to Live, the first book in the trilogy, was finally published when he was 50. The finished book cowered in a drawer, Deary lacking the confidence to seek publication. Five years later, he became a single parent when his 16-year-old daughter came to live with him. When he hit 40, long since amicably divorced, Deary left his job as an NHS therapist, sold up in London, moved back to Scotland, and corralled material for the first book. Deary offers himself up as a good example of this, and there are three other case histories in the book, including that of his late mother. Then, he says, there’s our constitution, which is encoded with memories of previous generations and sometimes by intergenerational trauma the body remembers, it keeps score.

Deary believes we can make changes, if circumstances allow, and we can adapt, but we can’t fundamentally change the self we were born with. Deary goes on to share something else with me: he dreads the intimacy of dinner parties and hates surprises, before adding that his partner of 10 years recently threw a surprise party for his 60th birthday – and he loved it. The NHS clinic, which is closing later this year, is unique in the UK for taking a multi-disciplinary approach to disabling fatigue. The book is the second in a trilogy by Deary, a professor of psychology at Northumbria University and a clinical fatigue specialist at the Cresta Fatigue Clinic, a role from which he has just retired. We’re here to discuss his new book, How We Break: Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living, an exploration of our varying responses to the corrosive pressures of daily life, especially work, and an assertion of the vital necessity of rest, recovery and the lost art of convalescence. It’s racing now as we sit together in a London hotel. Worse, the prospect of an interview and of meeting someone new made his arrhythmic heart race. Vincent Deary, psychologist, fatigue specialist and author, has been telling me what an “anxious creature” he is.

What is intergenerational trauma