Racial Trauma and Intersectionality
What are the different ways that racial trauma shows up in our lives?
People who are familiar with racism may know that it is acknowledged as a public health crisis by the American Public Health Association. You can read more about how daily experiences of racism, discrimination, and microaggressions affect us psychologically and in our trauma symptoms in my blog post here.
Many people are familiar with the idea of intersectionality, or how different aspects of our identities intersect with one another to make us who we are as people. For example, our age, gender, sexuality, income, geographical location, nationality, disabilities/ able bodiedness, and race are some aspects of identities that affect the way that we show up in therapy and in the world.
What is the difference between a trauma and a stressor, and how does it make sense with racism?
When we think about trauma, we think about how a single or a series of traumatic events lead to a series of PTSD symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance of triggers, and pervasive negative mood. When we think about stress, we think about an ongoing “low-grade” stressor that constantly exists in our lives.
When we think about the effects of racism, it is important to acknowledge that it can be both of the above. For example, a very specific and significant experience (e.g. an instance of police brutality) with racism can be a traumatic event. AND, we can acknowledge that racism is an ongoing stressor for BIPOC people that affects every aspect of how we relate to ourselves, others, and the society around us. A particularly nefarious aspect of racism is that because racism is commonly implicit rather than explicit, many times we are left wondering if a perpetrator or structural barrier was due to racism or not. This constant not knowing can influence something called threat sensitivity, or how sensitive we are to a sense of threat in our environment.
How does all of this make sense with intersectionality?
Intersectionality takes into account how different aspects of our identity (such as age, gender, sexuality, race, nationality, disability, socioeconomic status, etc) all work together to determine how we uniquely experience discrimination or privilege in our contexts. Race can intersect with each of these other identity factors to determine how our brain processes or gets stuck in trauma. So for example, if someone is not given the same opportunities as others at work due to their racial or gender identity preventing them from being seen as a leader, it would be important to understand how each of these factors work together. A therapist who is sensitive to identity issues and intersectionality will be able to work with you to identify and validate the explicit and implicit discrimination at play, find creative ways to advocate for yourself or keep you safe as much as possible, and process any stress or trauma with these identity factors in mind.
What do I do now?
If you feel that you are needing support healing from racial trauma or race-based traumatic stress, there are many steps you can take to start. You can book a free consultation with our therapist matchmaker to explore online individual (CA residents only) therapy for racial trauma. You can also educate yourself through psychoeducational books and seek social support through BIPOC or allied communities.
These blogs talk more about the basics of EMDR:
You can read more about Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy here: