Racial trauma, a form of race-based stress, refers to People of Color and Indigenous individuals' reactions to dangerous events and real or perceived experiences of racial discrimination.
Such experiences may include threats of harm and injury, humiliating and shaming events, and witnessing racial discrimination toward other individuals.
Although similar to posttraumatic stress disorder, racial trauma is unique in that it involves ongoing individual and collective injuries due to exposure and reexposure to race-based stress.
The articles in this special issue introduce new conceptual approaches, research, and healing models to challenge racial trauma. The authors encourage psychologists to develop culturally informed healing modalities and methodologically sophisticated research and urge the inclusion of public policy interventions in the area of racial trauma.
Special Issue Editor
Table of contents
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Racial Trauma: Theory, Research, and Healing: Introduction to the Special Issue
Lillian Comas-Díaz, Gordon Nagayama Hall, and Helen A. Neville
New Conceptual Models
- American Indian Historical Trauma: Anticolonial Prescriptions for Healing, Resilience, and Survivance
William E. Hartmann, Dennis C. Wendt, Rachel L. Burrage, Andrew Pomerville, and Joseph P. Gone - The Impact of Historical Trauma on Health Outcomes for Indigenous Populations in the USA and Canada: A Systematic Review
Joseph P. Gone, William E. Hartmann, Andrew Pomerville, Dennis C. Wendt, Sarah H. Klem, and Rachel L. Burrage - The Japanese American Wartime Incarceration: Examining the Scope of Racial Trauma
Donna K. Nagata, Jacqueline H. J. Kim, and Kaidi Wu - Healing Ethno-Racial Trauma in Latinx Immigrant Communities: Cultivating Hope, Resistance, and Action
Nayeli Y. Chavez-Dueñas, Hector Y. Adames, Jessica G. Perez-Chavez, and Silvia P. Salas - RECASTing Racial Stress and Trauma: Theorizing the Healing Potential of Racial Socialization in Families
Riana Elyse Anderson and Howard C. Stevenson - A Model of Cumulative Racial–Ethnic Trauma Among Americans of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Descent
Germine H. Awad, Maryam Kia-Keating, and Mona M. Amer
Empirical Research
- Understanding the Link Between Racial Trauma and Substance Use Among American Indians
Monica C. Skewes and Arthur W. Blume - Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in African American and Latinx Adults: Clinical Course and the Role of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination
Nicholas J. Sibrava, Andri S. Bjornsson, A. Carlos I. Pérez Benítez, Ethan Moitra, Risa B. Weisberg, and Martin B. Keller - Racial Discrimination and Racial Identity: Daily Moderation Among Black Youth
Eleanor K. Seaton and Masumi Iida
Challenging Racial Ideologies
- Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders
Derald Wing Sue, Sarah Alsaidi, Michael N. Awad, Elizabeth Glaeser, Cassandra Z. Calle, and Narolyn Mendez - Racial Trauma, Microaggressions, and Becoming Racially Innocuous: The Role of Acculturation and White Supremacist Ideology
William Ming Liu, Rossina Zamora Liu, Yunkyoung Loh Garrison, Ji Youn Cindy Kim, Laurence Chan, Yu C. S. Ho, and Chi W. Yeung
An Enduring Message
- The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King, Jr.
