Legacy Burdens & Emerging Autonomy: Holding Space for the Unspoken

By Hanouf Alahmari, MA, LMFT Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (California) Licensed Senior Specialist in Clinical Psychology (Saudi Arabia)

“We are not responsible for what we inherited. But we are responsible for what we pass on.” – Dr. Richard Schwartz

In the Gulf region, youth are often praised for upholding values of loyalty, obedience, and honor. These values are deeply respected, but for many, living up to them can come at the cost of their emotional authenticity.

Beneath the surface of high-functioning and self-reliant young people, there are often invisible burdens they were never meant to carry.

•  The unspoken grief of a parent who never had space to process their own pain
• The pressure to meet expectations that leave little room for desire or choice
• Generational narratives that emphasize duty and relational harmony, sometimes at the expense of emotional expression.

These are legacy burdens. They are intergenerational emotional imprints shaped by unprocessed relational experiences, inherited beliefs, and implicit cultural expectations.

These burdens often show up in the client’s internal system as protective roles, beliefs, or emotional patterns that were shaped by earlier family dynamics.

Legacy Burdens: A Quiet Inheritance

Legacy burdens often take shape as inherited roles, emotions, or beliefs carried by parts formed in response to family and cultural dynamics. 

Examples include:

• A daughter who excels but struggles to ask for help. 
• A son who silences his grief because “men don’t cry.”
• A student who wants to pursue art, but chooses medicine to protect their parents’ pride.

These parts may overfunction, silence needs, or compromise authenticity to maintain belonging. 

Such strategies often develop in environments where emotional sensitivity is valued, yet not always encouraged to be expressed openly. It is a relational adaptation formed in environments where emotional autonomy is experienced as a threat to connection.

Clinical Approaches and Techniques

Translating Insight into Practice

Supporting youth in releasing legacy burdens requires both therapeutic sensitivity and methodological clarity.

Here are some approaches I’ve found helpful when working with legacy burdens in a way that honors both the client's internal system and their cultural context. They offer a way to stay attuned without imposing, and to invite autonomy without threatening belonging.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Helps clients identify and differentiate internal parts shaped by ancestral or familial expectations.

• Map parts like the Pleaser, the Rebel, or the Invisible One
• Unblend protectors and access the client’s Self energy
• Invite clients to name inherited roles, witness the burden these parts have carried, and gently return what was never theirs (e.g., “I honor this role, but I no longer need to carry it.”)

 EMDR

Targets early memories and distressing beliefs tied to familial or cultural pressures.

• Use floatback techniques to trace present distress to early familial moments
• Reprocess beliefs like “I must keep everyone happy to be safe”
• Install new, culturally congruent beliefs using culturally resonant imagery, such as prayer, poetry, or family strength

Narrative Therapy

Re-author dominant family stories that define worth or obedience.

• Externalize burdens: “What does the pressure to succeed expect from you?”
• Invite clients to re-member whose voices shape their identity
• Make room for complexity. Allow both love and resentment to coexist in the client’s story.

Psychoeducation on Developmental Trauma & Autonomy

Normalize internal conflict around individuation.

• Teach the nervous system’s responses to relational pressure (e.g., fawning, perfectionism)
• Use metaphors grounded in regional imagery. For example, “like a palm tree, rooted in heritage, yet flexible in its growth.”

Somatic Practices

Anchor safety in the body as clients explore emotional material.

• Gentle orienting and containment exercises
• Grounding tools drawn from culture: oud, incense, poetry, prayer
• Help clients track nervous system cues that signal whether they are acting from Self or from a place of pressure.

Relational Repair (When Appropriate)

Involve family members when safety and mutual respect are present.

• Use circular questioning to widen perspective
• Frame healing work as an act of preserving, not breaking, family unity
• Bridge through shared values such as mercy, dignity, and relational responsibility.

Cultural Complexity: Autonomy Without Disconnection

In Gulf societies, autonomy does not usually mean individualism. It often means differentiation with reverence.

Instead, it may look like:

• Expressing disagreement without dishonoring elders
• Choosing rest without guilt
• Naming boundaries with humility, not rebellion

This requires a nuanced clinical stance, supporting emotional differentiation while maintaining respect for the relational and cultural frameworks that hold significance for the client.

Clinician Reflection: Are You Holding What Was Never Yours?

Many of us, as clinicians, carry our own legacy burdens into the therapy room. We may feel pressure to “fix” outcomes, mediate between worlds, or silence our own parts for the sake of professionalism.

If you notice persistent fatigue, emotional numbing, or a sense of being over-responsible for your clients’ healing, you may be overidentified with parts that learned to protect through performance and composure.

IFS invites us to pause and ask:

• What parts of me are showing up in this session?
• Who am I protecting when I overfunction?
• What would it mean to lead from Self, rather than inherited scripts?

In the End…

To support young people in releasing legacy burdens, we must be willing to see our own.

Healing legacy burdens is not about rejecting tradition, faith, or family. It is about relating to them with more spaciousness and intention, so that connection can include the self, not come at its expense.

With curiosity. 

With compassion. 

With choice.

To be held, and to hold, is not a contradiction. It is a deeply Arab value.

Let us model what it means to honor legacy, and gently choose what continues.

About the Author

Hanouf Alahmari, LMFT, is a bilingual (Arabic & English) therapist licensed in California and Saudi Arabia. She specializes in healing trauma, attachment wounds, and relational challenges, providing evidence-based, culturally attuned care to support lasting emotional well-being.

Hanouf is available for speaking engagements, podcast interviews, and panel discussions on trauma, attachment, mental health, and healing in Middle Eastern, North African (MENA), and Muslim communities.

For collaborations and inquiries, contact hello@trueselfpractice.com

هنوف الأحمري، معالجة نفسية ومعالجة أسرية وزوجية مرخصة في كاليفورنيا والمملكة العربية السعودية، تقدم علاجًا نفسيًا ثنائي اللغة (العربية والإنجليزية) يرتكز على فهم الصدمات النفسية وجروح التعلق والتحديات العاطفية. تعتمد في نهجها على أساليب علاجية قائمة على الأدلة العلمية، مع مراعاة الثقافة العربية والإسلامية، لمساعدة الأفراد على استعادة توازنهم العاطفي وبناء علاقات صحية ومتوازنة.

هنوف متاحة للمشاركة في الفعاليات كمتحدثة، وإجراء مقابلات في البودكاست، والمشاركة في حلقات نقاش حول الصدمات النفسية، والتعلق، والصحة النفسية، وطرق التشافي في مجتمعات الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا 

والمجتمعات المسلمة.