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***The Instant National Bestseller***
A Next Big Idea Club must-read title for January 2024
The definitive, paradigm-shifting guide to healing intergenerational trauma—weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room—from Dr. Mariel Buqué, PhD, a Columbia University–trained trauma-informed psychologist and practitioner of holistic healing
From Dr. Mariel Buqué, a leading trauma psychologist, comes this groundbreaking guide to transforming intergenerational pain into intergenerational abundance. With Break the Cycle, she delivers the definitive guide to healing inherited trauma. Weaving together scientific research with practical exercises and stories from the therapy room, Dr. Buqué teaches readers how trauma is transmitted from one generation to the next and how they can break the cycle through tangible therapeutic practices, learning to pass down strength instead of pain to future generations.
When a physical wound is left unhealed, it continues to cause pain and can infect the whole body. When emotions are left unhealed, they similarly cause harm that spreads to other parts of our lives, hurting our family, friends, community members, and others. Eventually, this hurt can injure an entire lineage, metastasizing across years and generations. This is intergenerational trauma.
This trauma is why some of us become estranged from our families, why some of us are people pleasers, why some of us find ourselves in codependent relationships. This trauma can be rooted in the experiences of ancestors, who may have suffered due to unhealthy family dynamics, and it can be collective, the result of a shared experience like systemic oppression, or harmful ingrained behaviors in a culture like the acceptance of physical discipline of children, or even a natural disaster like a pandemic. These wounds are complex, impacting our minds, bodies, and spirits. Healing requires a holistic approach that has so far been absent from the field of psychology. Until now.
Reviews
A Next Big Idea Club must-read title for January 2024Praise for Break the Cycle
"Dr. Mariel offers a comprehensive and groundbreaking approach to healing trauma at the root. With a method that is both empowering and a call to action, her work masterfully interweaves science, therapeutic practices, and ancestral wisdom; offering you restorative tools to disrupt generational patterns of trauma at the individual and collective level."—Resmaa Menakem MSW, LICSW, SEP, New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother's Hands
“With all the family trauma we carry, Break the Cycle carries healing for us. With all the pain around us and fully ingrained in us, Dr. Mariel Buqué brings holistic and multidimensional healing for every part of us. What a timely, indispensable, and restorative book.”—Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning
"Dr. Mariel Buqué’s work is filled with essential gems that help us understand the depths and layers of intergenerational trauma and equip learners of her work to master how to Break the Cycle. Her approach toward intergenerational healing practices is comprehensive, holistic, humanizing, and real. She helps us see how mental health practices can be accessible, culturally responsive, and applicable to people across the world who wish to internalize her healing techniques in ways that can produce sustainable effects in their lives and for future generations to come. This literary work has the capacity to shift the way we see the phenomenon of trauma and helps us to envision a world where emotional freedom from the grip of generational pain is indeed possible.”—Layla Saad, NYT bestselling author of Me and White Supremacy
"With Break the Cycle, Dr. Mariel Buqué is gifting us with the guidebook we need to heal the intergenerational trauma we all carry but might not have awareness of yet. The invitation is clear: to recognize and claim that we are the cycle breakers and heal our souls. Dr. Buqué has collected the teachings along her journey to provide us loving guidance with concrete expert knowledge, lessons to integrate with holistic and therapeutic practices – and even sound baths!"—Ana Flores, CEO of WeAllGrow Latina
"Dr. Mariel Buqué’s new book Break the Cycle is a perfect example of the power of the human mind to change and heal! She shows how we all have the power to be “cycle breakers” when it comes to intergenerational trauma—how even though we cannot always control what happens to us or our families, we can find true and lasting healing and write our own stories. Dr. Mariel truly understands the importance of how we think, feel and choose, and how this can impact how we function in our day-to-day life. Her enthusiasm and dedication to help others experience the power of the mind and human resilience is both encouraging and inspiring!”—Dr. Caroline Leaf, Clinical Neuroscientist and bestselling author
"Break the Cycle is the ultimate guidebook for recognizing and healing from the trauma that's been passed down in your family. Dr. Buqué uses stories, reflection questions, and exercises to help you pinpoint the trauma you've inherited and the strategies that will prevent you from passing it on to the next generation.”—Amy Morin, LCSW, international bestselling author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do
“With warmth, grace, and an abundance of both wisdom and knowledge, Dr. Mariel Buqué leads the reader on a very important path of becoming a cycle breaker. This guide lovingly holds your hand as you move through that which came before you, and that which you’ve endured. Break The Cycle offers hope, choice, and a path towards empowerment and peace.”—Vienna Pharaon, nationally bestselling author of The Origins of You
"Blending science, therapy and personal anecdotes, Break the Cycle empowers readers to disrupt harmful patterns from the past and cultivate new cycles of love and strength."—Vex King, bestselling author of Good Vibes, Good Life
“A notable strength of this work is Buqué’s clear and compassionate treatment of delicate subjects and her credible endorsement of the promise of modern therapeutic interventions. Particularly intriguing are the author’s discussions of the physical consequences of psychological stress, and she compellingly summarizes recent scientific studies demonstrating how trauma can modify genetic expression across generations. A field-tested, practical guidebook for reclaiming health in the face of intergenerational trauma. ”—Kirkus
“Psychologist Buqué debuts with a wise program for repairing intergenerational trauma…Her discussion of the ways collective trauma impacts marginalized families is especially illuminating. Readers seeking a practical and psychologically grounded approach to healing familial wounds will find value here.”—Publishers Weekly Expand reviews