“Ouch, my ancestors!”: why telling your story also liberates future generations

In light of the work of Anne Ancelin Schützenberger and psychogenealogy

“What is not expressed, is imprinted.”
— Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, Ouch, my ancestors!

We often believe that what is silent disappears. That silences protect. But the reality is more complex—and often more painful. Family secrets, unspoken traumas, unfinished stories can mark our lives, even if we don't consciously know them.
This is what psychogenealogy demonstrates, an approach developed by Anne Ancelin Schützenberger in her seminal book Ouch, My Ancestors! And this is what memoirƨ helps to overcome, by making possible a simple but essential act: storytelling.

The Invisible Legacy: The Ghosts of Silence

Anne Ancelin Schützenberger has worked for a long time with patients suffering from unexplained suffering. What she discovered: we sometimes replay the unresolved dramas of our ancestors, without even knowing it.
"We carry in our cells, in our family unconscious, the echo of events of which we know nothing."
A grandfather who died too soon, an uncle no one ever speaks of, a stillborn child erased from family trees... These unspoken things leave a mark. They create what she calls “invisible loyalties”: silent loyalties to stories we don't know, but which govern us despite ourselves.

Talking is healing—for yourself, and for others

Fortunately, it is possible to break the chain. And it starts with storytelling. Saying, writing, naming.

"What is put into words can cease to be put into evils."

This is one of the great lessons of Ouch, My Ancestors!: speech liberates. Expressing one's story, even in its dark areas, allows one to restore meaning to what seemed absurd, and sometimes to break unconscious family patterns.

Pass on to appease the bloodlines

Self-narration not only helps us understand ourselves; it also repairs family memory. By talking about what we have experienced, what we have understood or gone through, we open up paths of understanding for future generations.

“What parents keep quiet, children carry.”

Telling one's story therefore lightens the burden of the past that others might have carried in our place. It is a gift of clarity, an act of emotional and symbolic responsibility.

memoirƨ: a tool to put into words what should have been said

It's with this in mind that memoirƨ was designed: to allow everyone to tell their story, without expertise or judgment, but with guidance and kindness. Through questions inspired by the humanities, our tool helps you revisit your life, your memories, your choices, your pains, and your joys—and turn them into a book or audio story to share.

You can discuss what was said and what wasn't. Put words where, sometimes, there was only silence.

A living, conscious, liberating legacy

• For oneself , by giving meaning to one's journey.

• For his children and grandchildren , by shedding light on the dark areas.

• For the entire lineage, transforming invisible loyalties into visible words.
  
  

As Schützenberger wrote:
"Only by being willing to look back can we move forward freely."