David Kessler and Julia Samuel: Old Wounds and Intergenerational Grief

About the event

Why does some pain seem to echo across years, even decades? How do we begin to change patterns that no longer serve us? In this special conversation, world-leading grief experts Julia Samuel MBE and David Kessler explore how loss can leave ‘unseen imprints’ through family narratives, silences, and unresolved grief. Drawing on David’s work on old wounds and Julia’s insights into intergenerational grief, they consider how what happened before can shape how we feel, cope and protect ourselves now.

As Julia writes, ‘the stories we tell ourselves become who we are’. In that spirit, the session looks at how inherited stories can narrow our choices without us noticing, and how we can start to loosen their hold. David and Julia share practical ways to recognise these hidden layers of grief, tend them with compassion, and revisit the past without getting trapped in it, so that moving forward becomes possible.