What is Ancestral Lineage Repair?

Ancestral lineage repair is based on the premise that everyone has loving and supportive ancestors. Ancestors refer to those deceased blood kin relatives from whom we are descendants.
This work is to relationally connect and develop relationships with your well ancestors in spirit - asking them to be guides for you and to help repair the lineage in spirit.

Although not widely practiced in the United States or in the peer-reviewed literature, Ancestral Lineage Repair is based on the work of Dr. Daniel Foor, Ph.D. who founded Ancestral Medicine. This approach does not represent any specific spiritual or religious practice or tradition. Relating to one’s ancestors is normal, and it is okay if you have no previous experience doing so.

Ancestral lineage repair is approached from a non-dogmatic, animist perspective, which means that humans are part of a larger web of consciousness that includes our ancestors. (See Dr. Daniel Foor’s book on Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing (2017) for more information).

​There are 4 assumptions in ancestral lineage repair:
  • Consciousness continues after death.
  • Not all of the dead are equally well.
  • The living and the dead can communicate.
  • The living and the dead can strongly affect one another.
This is a protocol-based practice, meaning there are specific structured steps Dr. Fatter will guide you through.
  • Assessing your lineages: The initial session is an experiential exercise to assess the wellness of each of your blood lineages. Then we decide which lineage to focus on first.
  • Connecting to a well ancestral guide: Dr. Fatter will then guide you through an experiential exercise to connect with a healthy and vibrant ancestral guide from a given blood lineage.  Ways to nurture your connection with this guide in your everyday life will be explored.
  • Repairing the lineage: With the support of the ancestral guide, Dr. Fatter will guide you through a protocol in which the ancestral guide helps repair and heal any unwell deceased family on the lineage to restore its health and wellness. The ancestral guide does the repair - the client's role is to witness and be in relationship with the ancestral guide. 
  • Integrating the wellness of the restored lineage: Once a lineage is vibrant and well in spirit, Dr. Fatter will guide you in an experiential exercise to have the ancestors extend the elevated energy from the lineage to other living family and to you, so that you can embody gifts from the lineage and live relationally with ancestral support. ​
NEW: Training Offered for IFS-trained therapists. 
See: https://internalfamilysystems.pt/especializacao/ancestral-lineage-repair-workshops
Many cultures believe that we can be connected to our ancestors who came before us. Epigenetic literature suggests that trauma and trauma’s imprint may be passed down through the generations in ways we are still beginning to understand through research on pregnant women who witnessed the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in the US, (Yehuda et al., 2005) descendants of Rwandan genocide survivors (Perroud et al., 2014), and descendants of Holocaust survivors (Yehuda et al., 2016).

Information on ways partnering with ancestral guides can be integrated in IFS therapy:
IFS Talks Podcast: 
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-ancestral-medicine-informs-ifs-legacy-burdens-work/id1481000501?i=1000526889560
Dr. Fatter offers ancestral lineage repair as a stand-alone intervention and also as an adjunctive intervention if appropriate to support Dr. Fatter’s clinical work. If you do ancestral lineage repair, Dr. Fatter will serve as an Ancestral Medicine Practitioner, not as a psychologist. While it may have mental health benefits, this practice is not evidenced-based and does not fall under the practice of psychology or psychological treatment. It is not listed or approved by the American Psychological Association as a psychological treatment. This practice is not a replacement for evidenced-based psychotherapy. Ancestral lineage repair is an experimental practice and a decolonization embodied practice. Currently, the peer reviewed research is limited.