Trauma Blog

Clinician’s corner: STARS: An ecological blueprint for addressing racial stress in trauma-informed ‎practice in schools
StressPoints
Date posted: 06/28/2023
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
In a world where Black youth are shot for something as harmless and accidental as arriving at the wrong address to pick up their younger siblings, it becomes increasingly evident that we often fail to acknowledge the profound impact of racial stress and trauma. Ralph Yarl’s story is just one among far too many where activities like walking, playing, knocking on the wrong door or simply existing while being Black can have fatal consequences (Zaru & Negussie, 2023). While we have become more accustomed to discussing stories like Ralph's, or to seeing them dominate the U.S. news cycle for days on end, we have yet to fully come to terms with the fact that the reach of racial stress and trauma extends far beyond the confines of direct involvement in a traumatic event. Merely witnessing systemic racism and oppression weighs heavily on our youth, akin to an unspoken toll or what one young person, who participated in our teams’ intervention (i.e., TRANSFORM; Lau Johnson, Saleem, Pickens & Langley, 2021) designed to heal racial stress and trauma, refers to as an invisible burden: “I knew it was there, but I didn't know that it had a specific name to it. Like putting a name to a face, I guess that kind of helped too.” What this teen describes—the ability to articulate the experience they have always felt and known to be true—is what it looks like to provide youth with the necessary tools to address racial stress and trauma. It is about the transformative process of making the invisible visible.

SIG Spotlight: Addressing Traumatic and Minority Stress among Transgender and Gender ‎Diverse Individuals
Date posted: 03/30/2023
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) is an internationally recognized event held annually on March 31. The event seeks to bring awareness to the disproportionate rates of discrimination and violence experienced by transgender and gender diverse (TGD) communities, as well as to celebrate the immense contributions of TGD individuals to our society. Despite progress being made in the global recognition of the disparate impact of trauma and violence on TGD populations, anti-transgender legislation in the United States has grown in the past few years, threatening to exacerbate preexisting health disparities for TGD populations (Barbee et al., 2022). Thus, in a cultural climate that subjects TGD individuals to chronic experiences of invalidation, discrimination and harm, it is imperative that traumatic stress researchers and clinicians acknowledge, address and seek to prevent trauma and minority stress for TGD individuals.
 

Trauma and Diversity: For the Women of Iran: Ideological-Based Trauma and the Fight for ‎Liberation
Date posted: 03/30/2023
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
In September 2022 in Iran, Mahsa Amini was detained and beaten by morality police over an inadequate hijab. She had a few hairs edging out from behind her headscarf. She was later killed in police custody. After the story broke, Iran erupted in widespread protests demanding justice for Mahsa and freedom and civil rights for all women. In unprecedented revolution, women and men took to the streets in large enough force to get global attention and the protests have continued for months now. Women’s traumatic experiences arising from patriarchal oppression are human rights violations (Critelli & McPherson, 2019). The personal is political and as traumatologists, we must not be afraid to traverse this topography with our clients. Violence and oppressive action toward women have had devastating effects on many women in Iran. 

How much do trauma-focused psychotherapies for PTSD improve interpersonal functioning?
Date posted: 02/9/2023
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
People with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often report difficulties with “interpersonal functioning,” which we define as quality, satisfaction, and day-to-day functioning within close relationships, such as those with family, intimate partners, and/or friends. While it seems plausible that reductions in PTSD symptoms enable improved interpersonal functioning, we know surprisingly little about how well trauma-focused psychotherapies address concerns regarding functioning in close relationships. To address this question, we pre-registered and undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the extent to which trauma-focused psychotherapies improve interpersonal functioning.

LGBTQIA+ Issues: Domestic Violence in the LGBTQ+ Community: A Silent Pandemic
Date posted: 09/29/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues

The history of violence against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) community has been originally tied to the notion of disparate identities. Stereotypes permeate popular perception associating homosexuality with criminal activity, mental illness, and deviance.  These views, despite some progress in awareness about the LGBTQ+ community, have resulted in a continued cycle of ridicule, harassment, discrimination, trauma, and even death.¹ Among all forms of violence faced by the LGBTQ+ community, domestic violence is often overlooked. 

Trauma and Diversity: Ableism in Psychological Trauma Clinical Research ‎
Date posted: 09/29/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
Over 70% of the population will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime (e.g., Benjet et al. 2016). This includes people with disabilities, who are disproportionately excluded from clinical treatment research that may help alleviate psychological trauma sequelae. This group comprises individuals with a wide range of difficulties in various domains of functioning that affect one or more major life activities. Approximately one billion people worldwide live with some form of disability (WHO, 2021). According to a large population survey, an estimated 20,269,500 people have an ambulatory disability, 11,118,100 have a hearing disability, and 7,016,600 have a visual disability (Erickson & von Schrader, 2022). Despite these statistics, scant studies have examined the efficacy of trauma-focused treatment amongst disabled populations (Post & van Leeuwen, 2012; Rogers & Read, 2007). The majority of trauma-focused treatment studies to date have focused on veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and PTSD (e.g., see review, Monsour, Ebedes, & Borlongan, 2022). Yet, the rates of mental health disorders amongst people with physical disabilities are disparately high in contrast to physically healthy individuals (e.g., see review, Mintz et al., 2022). For example, one study found women who experienced sexual assault and were visually impaired had higher PTSD prevalence rates compared to the general population (Bonsaken, Brunes, & Heir, 2022). Overall, there also has been a larger focus on studies of people with acquired (TBI) versus congenital disorders (e.g., cerebral palsy).
 

Trauma and World Literature: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Date posted: 09/29/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
Twenty-three years after publication of her classic novel, The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison wrote in an afterword that the primary mission of her book (if I understand her correctly) was to resolve a question. That question was: How could her African American schoolgirl friend not have experienced the beauty that she already possessed and have wished for blue eyes, with the implicit “racial self-loathing” of that wish? Morrison wonders, “Who made her feel that it was better to be a freak than what she was?” (Morrison, 1970, ‎p. 210). In her afterword, Morrison recounts that the book was initially not generally well-received. Thankfully, it has since been recognized for its superb literary and social value. This is not just in that it answers Morrison’s initial question, but also in that it provides the kind of insights into human experience as a whole—and in this case, especially social and racial relations—that are the special province of great literature.
 

LGBTQIA+ Issues: Using Expressive Writing to Mitigate the Negative Effects of Discrimination and ‎Stigma-Based Experiences among LGBTQ+ People
StressPoints
Date posted: 07/29/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
Individuals with minoritized sexual orientations and/or gender identities (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer [LGBTQ+]) have greater prevalence of trauma exposure and are at increased risk for depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), disordered eating, hazardous substance use, and suicide compared with their cisgender, heterosexual counterparts (Shipherd et al., 2021; Livingston et al., 2016; Livingston et al., 2015; Hazenbuehler, 2009). It is well established that LGBTQ+ individuals’ increased risk for psychiatric disorders is due to exposure to both chronic and severe forms of discrimination and stigma-related stressors (e.g., Meyer, 2003). Therefore, targeting the deleterious impacts of discrimination and stigma-related experiences represents an important strategy to offset disparity and promote wellness among members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Trauma and World Literature: The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
StressPoints
Date posted: 07/29/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
Richard Powers’ novels are known and respected for the way he incorporates lessons in history and science in the body of his work without intruding on character or plot development. In The Time of Our Singing, he structures his novel around the history of the modern civil rights movement in the U.S., beginning with Marion Anderson’s 1939 concert from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Within this structure, among other subjects, he includes a deep appreciation of classical music and the physics of time. His portrayal of racism in America received the following endorsement from Freeden Blume Oeur, a scholar of African American politics and intellectual history at Tufts University: “I saw in The Time of Our Singing how science and music can be allies in racial struggle. We should listen to the truths they reveal.”

Human Rights and Policy Recognizing Sexual Violence as a War Crime
StressPoints
Date posted: 05/24/2022
Topic: Diversity and Multicultural Issues
In April 2022, reports from the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine documented evidence of war crimes that they deemed a human rights and humanitarian crisis after the Russian invasion (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2022). Among many horrific discoveries was the use of sexual violence. By early April, hundreds of cases of sexual violence by Russian forces against Ukrainians had been reported to the Ukraine ombudsman for Human Rights (Jakes, 2022). In one specific instance in Bucha, a group of Ukrainian women aged 14 to 24 were kept imprisoned in a basement and repeatedly raped by Russian soldiers (Limaye, 2022; Ferris-Rotman, 2022). While some assaults during war and conflict may be random attacks by individual soldiers, in other cases, sexual violence is used as an explicit military tactic (Hagen & Yohani, 2010).