The Scoop: Our family histories inform the way we express love, affection, and sexual attraction. Samantha Heuwagen, a sex, marriage, and family therapist, told us how our family history can affect our relationships, and how to finally undo negative generational cycles.
Family history is heavy. There’s a psychological school of thought that suggests we all carry tiny fragments of our ancestors’ experiences in our DNA. I can’t help but picture tiny, colorful cartoon characters chilling out in my genetic code, like in the “Inside Out” films. Everything from my fear of heights to my know-it-all tendencies to my love of reading just may have roots in my family’s past.
And if you struggle to express affection or feel panicked in emotional situations, you may have your ancestors to thank for that, too.
Licensed sex, marriage, and family therapist Samantha Heuwagen made it clear we don’t have to live with this weight forever. “I love helping people have healthier sex lives,” she told us. Samantha pointed out that the first step to healing your own sexual issues is to uncover the significant moments of your family history that may still affect you.
According to Samantha, a sexual genogram is a unique way to gain insight into your family’s past. This genogram, or detailed family tree, describes your family’s positive and negative experiences with sex and other relevant topics. When looked at through a sexual lens, you can finally start to create healthier habits, sexual and otherwise.
Genograms, Explained
Samantha believes that sexual health is informed by physical, mental, emotional health, and social factors, including your family.
On her website, Samantha refers to sexual genograms as “in-depth family trees” that provide insight into the decisions you make about your relationships. Sexual genograms in particular can help explain why you express yourself the way you do.
It’s Samantha’s job to help her clients identify unhelpful habits that could be negatively affecting their lives in and out of the bedroom. Sexual genograms reveal her clients’ complicated backstories. “As an LMFT, it’s my responsibility to know about your family of origin,” she told us. “I do sexual genograms with all of my clients to explore what they know about themselves and to shed light on unwanted patterns, sexual or otherwise.”
Samantha made an important distinction between a sexual family tree and an ancestral family tree. “For me, it’s a tool where I can look at their mental and physical health, their connections, and how people learned to be humans through the first caregivers they were exposed to.”
A genogram shows you the reality of your family history. “People can see who interacted with who [in the family],” Samantha explained, “and how that might have impacted your sense of self or added patterns that no longer serve you.” As an example, she said, “Anxiety can get passed down through generations.”
It’s easier to pick up on red flags when they’re staring up at you from a piece of paper. Sexual issues, especially those that run in the family, are so wrapped up in taboos that you may not even know they exist until you go through the process of creating a sexual genogram with a trained professional.
As Samantha told us, the puzzle pieces that make up someone’s family history “tell me what [clients] witnessed growing up and how they have been impacted by what it means to be a sexual person.” It’s strange to think about it, but even grandparents and great-grandparents’ sexual histories can be intertwined with your own.
And once you know the negative aspects of your family history, you can start to repair damaging inherited cycles. Samantha told us how her clients’ reactions to their genograms vary widely. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, my God, this has made me look at my family in this way.’ Or, ‘This is giving me more compassion or empathy with certain individuals.’”
She said, “People ask me all the time, ‘Why am I attracted to what I’m attracted to?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ We don’t know if it’s biology. We don’t know if it’s what you grew up seeing. We honestly have no idea.” Thankfully, genograms can reveal unique characteristics and patterns — even sexual ones — that provide insight into your own behavioral patterns.
Your Family’s Past Influences Your Sexual Present
If you want to uncover your family’s relationship to sex, Samantha recommends asking yourself a crucial question: When did you first learn about sex?
“Yes, we have the media, but [our initial impression of sex] comes from our family of origin,” she explained. “Did you see mom and dad kiss? How affectionate was your family? If you don’t recall, that’s information we can use, too. It doesn’t always have to be explicit.”
If you’re lucky, your first introduction to sex was in a calm, judgment-free environment where you were free to ask questions without awkwardness. But this is an ideal scenario, and it wasn’t the reality for most of us.
“You would be amazed by all the information we can uncover [with the help of sexual genograms].”
“Have you ever heard your parents have sex, or walked in on your parents having sex?” Samantha asked. This awkward moment may have subconsciously shaped the way you think about sex and express affection. “How did your parents react? What did your caregivers say, explicitly or otherwise, about sexual activity? It’s all connected.”
“I love asking, ‘Did [your parents] ever kiss? Did they ever hold hands?’ Some people say yes, some people say no. And truthfully, the answer doesn’t matter. That’s still data we can use to understand sexual or nonsexual patterns.” Even seemingly insignificant parts of your childhood can inform the way you express affection as an adult.
When Samantha sees moments like these reflected on a sexual genogram or during a therapy session, she gains insight into her client’s behavior in the bedroom and beyond.
As a sex therapist, Samantha emphasizes the connections between sexual health and mental health, and the influence family history has on both.
For example, it’s possible your parents’ distant relationship can be traced back to specific events. If your mother was overprotective to the point of anxiousness and your father was sullen to the point of depression, you can bet their sex life was affected, even if only indirectly. And if they struggled to convey their affection for each other, you may have inadvertently picked up those struggles, too.
In this way, every piece of your family’s puzzle provides insight into your own behaviors and habits. “You would be amazed by all the information we can uncover [with the help of sexual genograms],” Samantha told us.
General Health Connects To Sexual Health
Once we uncover the parts of our familial past that affect our sex lives, we can start to undo any negative cycles.
Samantha explained that physical, emotional, mental, and sexual wellness are “all interconnected. If you’re not feeling your best, [or even] safe, how can your body know it’s safe to be vulnerable?”
As one of life’s most vulnerable acts, sex is only fulfilling when each aspect of your health is firing on all cylinders. As Samantha pointed out, “Why would you want to do something physical if your emotional and mental bucket is not full?”
You may be emotionally close to your lover, but continual stress and worry can make you feel like strangers. It’s easy to get swept up into the hopelessness caused by, for example, natural disasters and political upheaval. Samantha even emphasized how the holidays consistently take a toll on her clients’ sex lives.
This is why Samantha encourages her clients to make peace with what they can’t change. Coming to terms with this is “the biggest mental health issue right now,” Samantha claimed.
If your ancestors had to face a hurricane, they would’ve been forced to put their emotions aside to survive. You still can’t stop a hurricane these days, but you can control your reaction to it. You can decide to break a generational cycle of avoidance by expressing your emotions about the hurricane to your partner. You and your significant other should be able to lean on each other for support during tough times.
Samantha recommends breaking your stress down into practical goals. “Make a plan to take care of yourself. You can have boundaries with social media, with the news, and with how much you’re talking about [a stressful topic] with other people. You can dig into your self-care.”
She named drinking water, exercising, and sleeping well as examples of attainable self-care goals. And remember: It’s okay to hit rough patches or dry spells. Sex therapists don’t have a magic wand that fixes every couple’s problems, so accepting your emotions for what they are, even if they’re inconvenient, is an important step to sexual healing.
“Make a plan to take care of yourself. You can have boundaries with social media, with the news, and with how much you’re talking about [a stressful topic] with other people. You can dig into your self care.”
Going to bed earlier or cutting out red meat may not seem related to your sex life, but they’re simple ways to improve your health that your ancestors may not have had the luxury of trying. And as Samantha reminded us, our sexual health is closely tied to our emotional, mental, and physical health. If one of these is lacking, you’ll feel it in every other area as well.
“If you struggle with self-care or want to learn more about your past, reach out to a trained mental health professional that specializes in family of origin matters,” Samantha advised. “Therapy can be a useful resource to help manage stress in and out of the bedroom.”
Samantha told us how her experience as a sex therapist has made her a more curious, open-minded person. “I just feel like I have less judgment when it comes to life,” she said. “Everyone is dealing with something, and when you can approach others with curiosity, it opens up a channel to real connection.”
When you can look at your family history and your own history without judgment, you’re one step closer to achieving sexual healing.
