Remediating Childhood Trauma Through Conscious Fatherhood: A Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

Childhood trauma can significantly influence emotional development, attachment relationships, identity formation, and later experiences of parenting. Although a growing body of research has examined the effects of trauma across the lifespan, limited qualitative research has explored how first-time fathers with histories of childhood trauma experience raising their own sons. This study explored the lived experiences of six first-time fathers who reported childhood trauma and sought to understand how fatherhood shaped their experiences of attachment, emotional awareness, meaning-making, and relationships with their sons.

Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), semi-structured interviews were conducted with six first-time fathers of sons. Interviews were analyzed following IPA procedures to examine how participants made sense of fatherhood in relation to their developmental histories, relational experiences, and personal identities. The analysis revealed six superordinate themes: (1) the impact of intergenerational trauma transmission; (2) emotionally unavailable and abusive fathers; (3) transforming insecure attachments into more secure relational patterns; (4) raising awareness and breaking free from complexes; (5) carrying the psychological legacy of childhood trauma; and (6) spirituality: a sense of self, purpose, and meaning-making.

Findings suggest that fatherhood may function as a unique relational context in which unresolved childhood experiences become increasingly visible and emotionally accessible. Further, participants experienced fatherhood as a complex encounter with both past and present, intensifying awareness of earlier wounds while simultaneously creating opportunities for reflection, accountability, repair, and more intentional and emotionally responsive relationships with their sons.