The Ancestor Syndrome

We are all a link in the chain of generations and sometimes we have to "pay off the debts" of our ancestors. This "invisible loyalty" prompts us to reproduce - whether we want to or not, consciously or not - pleasant or painful experiences of the past. The truth is that we are less free than we think, but we can reclaim our freedom once we understand the complex relationships woven into our lineage.

The Ancestor Syndrome is a highly engaging and exemplar-filled book that ranks among the most current research in the field of transgenerational relationships, introducing us to unconscious-to-unconscious transmission, to ancestral secrets and family guilt, to the amazing repetitions of the same events on the same dates within one or more generations, both individually and historically.

The book was published in 1988 and became an absolute bestseller. By 2007, it went through sixteen editions and reached a circulation of 300,000 copies. It has been translated into dozens of countries.

Anne Anslen Schützenberger (born 1919) is a French psychotherapist, group analyst, specialist in psychodrama and world-renowned founder of the science of psychogenealogy, as well as a noted university lecturer. For almost twenty years she was the head of the Laboratory of Social and Clinical Psychology of the University of Nice. She has published over twenty works, including "Psychodrama", "Psychogenealogy", "The Pleasure of Living" and others. She is best known for her contributions to the transgenerational approach to psychotherapy, and The Ancestor Syndrome brings her extraordinary