Racial Trauma Is Real

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If you feel increased activation, exhaustion, guilty, hopelessness, and anger about racial violence, you are not alone. We are in the newest chapter of the civil rights movement, and this time has been a reckoning for many people, particularly White people or people learning about their part in systemic racism, white supremacy, and anti-blackness. For many BIPOC folx, there has been renewed trauma at seeing violence against brown and black bodies.

While I have specialized in trauma as a professional, I am taking new steps into understanding how to be a racial trauma-informed therapist. I have benefited from the training of Inclusive Therapists and want to share this Instagram post from @inclusivetherapists:

The questions “What happened to you and your people? What is still happening now?” are a great opening for all of us (including, and perhaps especially for White people) in our therapy or in conversations with those close to us. Being able to share and explore our stories is a great start to helping us identify and integrate how race is part of our lives.

To reach out for therapy or training with Inclusive Therapists, check out the website inclusivetherapists.com

Identifying and Facing Racial Trauma

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Identifying and Facing Racial Trauma

In recent weeks, our nation has once again witnessed evidence of racial bias in its institutions. Between shootings of African-American men by police in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, contentious social media debates, and scenes in television shows such as Orange Is The New Black, we see examples of the ways that African-American people in particular experience racism through devaluation and often violence.

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PTSD and Trauma: What Is In the Criteria and What Isn’t

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We are seeing a lot more about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the media in recent years, particularly as more and more military personnel are returning from combat and as our culture is recognizing the traumatic impacts of physical, emotional, and sexual violence. This increase in awareness and the available treatments for PTSD is largely positive and will help lower the stigma or messages that one should “just get over” a traumatic event, allowing more people to receive treatment and alleviate suffering.

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Five Ways to Create and Connect to Body Resources

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Five Ways to Create and Connect to Body Resources

The symptoms of anxiety or effects of trauma can take up a lot of mental and physical space in the body. As humans, our attention goes to these areas of pain or discomfort. This is adaptive in some ways (for instance, you need to notice pain that lets you know that you are in immediate danger), but it is problematic when the attention chronically goes to areas of unease. 

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