Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T13:08:51.796Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Black Women and Trauma

from Part I - Black Women in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2023

Donna Baptiste
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Adia Gooden
Affiliation:
Unconditionally Worthy, Co.
Get access

Summary

Given their intersecting, historically oppressed identities, Black women are more likely to be exposed to traumatic experiences than other racial groups. In this chapter we review the historical, systemic and institutional, and individual trauma that impacts the mental health of Black women. We provide a framework for treating trauma with Black women that is based on intersectionality and Black feminist theory. Further, we share the key components of providing trauma-informed care and best practices clinicians can use when supporting Black women in healing from trauma.

Type
Chapter
Information
Promoting Black Women's Mental Health
What Practitioners Should Know and Do
, pp. 106 - 130
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Hotlines and Websites

Me too. (n.d.). https://metoomvmt.org/. Founded by Tarana Burke.Google Scholar
Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network. (n.d.). https://www.rainn.org/. National hotline, resources for survivors, family members, and providers, statistics, and other resources.Google Scholar
The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community. (n.d.). Ujimacommunity.org. Ujima is a clearinghouse for research literature, webinars, national issue forums, regional trainings, community-specific roundtables, blogs, articles, and on-site technical assistance.Google Scholar
The National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault (SCESA). (n.d.). https://sisterslead.org/. An advocacy organization of Women of Color dedicated to working with our communities to create a just society in which all Women of Color are able to live healthy lives free of violence.Google Scholar
Self-Compassion. (n.d.). https://self-compassion.org/. Self-compassion meditations, scripts, and other resources.Google Scholar

Books

Bryant-Davis, T. (2005). Thriving in the wake of trauma: A multicultural guide (No. 49). Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Buirski, N. (Director). (2018). The rape of Recy Taylor [Film]. Augusta Films LLC. https://www.therapeofrecytaylor.com/the-film/. A documentary about Mrs. Recy Taylor who was gang raped by six White boys in 1944 Alabama. Unbroken, she spoke up and fought for justice with help from Rosa Parks and legions of women.Google Scholar
Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror. Hachette UK.Google Scholar
Hooks, B. (1993). Sisters of the yam: Black women and self-recovery. South End Press. Lorde, A. (1984). Sister outsider. Crossing Press.Google Scholar
Morris, M., & Atlas, J. (Directors). (2019). PUSHOUT: The criminalization of Black girls in schools [Film]. A Woman in the Room Productions. https://pushoutfilm.com/. PUSHOUT is a feature-length documentary that takes a close look at the educational, judicial, and societal disparities facing Black girls.Google Scholar
Ritchie, A. J. (2017). Invisible no more: Police violence against Black women and women of color. Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, D. E. (1997) Killing the Black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Pantheon Books.Google Scholar

Films

Simmons, A. S. (Director). (2006). No! The rape documentary [Film]. AfroLez Productions. https://notherapedocumentary.org/home. NO! The Rape Documentary is the 2006-released Ford Foundation-funded, groundbreaking, film about intraracial rape, accountability, and healing in Black communities. Produced, written, and directed over a period of 12 years, by child sexual abuse and adult rape survivor Aishah Shahidah Simmons, this internationally acclaimed, award-winning film also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia.Google Scholar

References

Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The New Press.Google Scholar
Alim, T. N., Feder, A., Graves, R. E., Wang, Y., Weaver, J., Westphal, M., Alonso, A., Aigbogun, N. U., Smith, B. W., Doucette, J. T., Mellman, T. A., Lawson, W. B., & Charney, D. S. (2008). Trauma, resilience, and recovery in a high-risk African-American population. American Journal of Psychiatry, 165(12), 15661575.Google Scholar
Bath, H. (2008). The three pillars of trauma-informed care. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 17(3), 1721.Google Scholar
Bostwick, W. B., Boyd, C. J., Hughes, T. L., West, B. T., & McCabe, S. E. (2014). Discrimination and mental health among lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in the United States. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 84(1), 3545.Google Scholar
Boyd, J. (1993). In the company of my sisters: Black women and self-esteem. Dutton.Google Scholar
Bryant-Davis, T. (2005). Thriving in the wake of trauma: A multicultural guide (No. 49). Greenwood Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Collins, P. H. (2002). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, P. H. (1986). Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought. Social problems, 33(6), s14s32.Google Scholar
Covington, S. S. (2008). Women and addiction: A trauma-informed approach. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 40 (Suppl. 5), 377385.Google Scholar
DuMonthier, A., Childers, C., & Milli, J. (2017). The status of Black women in the United States. Institute for Women’s Policy Research.Google Scholar
Epstein, R., Blake, J., & González, T. (2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of black girls’ childhood. SSRN Electronic Journal, 3000695.Google Scholar
Fields, L., Valdez, C. E., Richmond, C., Murphy, M. J., Halloran, M., Boccellari, A., & Shumway, M. (2020). Communities Healing and Transforming Trauma (CHATT): A trauma-informed speakers’ bureau for survivors of violence. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 21(4), 437451.Google Scholar
Garner, A. S., Shonkoff, J. P., & Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care. (2012). Early childhood adversity, toxic stress, and the role of the pediatrician: Translating developmental science into lifelong health. Pediatrics, 129(1), e224e231.Google Scholar
Giddings, P. (1984). When and where I enter: The impact of Black women on race and sex in America. Morrow.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, R. E., Martin, C. G., & Smith, C. P. (2014). Systemic trauma. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 15(2), 117132.Google Scholar
Graff, G. (2014). The intergenerational trauma of slavery and its aftermath. The Journal of Psychohistory, 41(3), 181197.Google Scholar
Hoffman, K. M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J. R., & Oliver, M. N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between Blacks and Whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(16), 42964301.Google Scholar
Human Rights Campaign Foundation. (2020). An epidemic of violence: Fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States in 2020. https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/FatalViolence-2020Report-Final.pdfGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, E. J. (2002). Black women and community violence: Trauma, grief, and coping. Women & Therapy, 25(3–4), 2944.Google Scholar
Madsen, L., Blitz, L., McCorkle, D., & Panzer, P. (2003). Sanctuary in a domestic violence shelter: A team approach to healing. Psychiatric Quarterly, 74(2), 155171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmood, S. (2011). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCann, I. L., Sakheim, D. K., & Abrahamson, D. J. (1988). Trauma and victimization: A model of psychological adaptation. The Counseling Psychologist, 16(4), 531594.Google Scholar
Menakem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hands: Racialized trauma and the pathway to mending our hearts and bodies. Central Recovery Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, R. E., & Oudekerk, B. A. (2019). Criminal victimization 2018. National Crime Victimization Survey. Bureau of Justice Statistics. https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=6686Google Scholar
Morris, M. (2016). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. The New Press.Google Scholar
Myers, H. F., Wyatt, G. E., Ullman, J. B., Loeb, T. B., Chin, D., Prause, N., Zhang, M., Williams, J. K., Slavich, G. M., & Liu, H. (2015). Cumulative burden of lifetime adversities: Trauma and mental health in low-SES African Americans and Latino/as. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 7(3), 243251. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0039077Google Scholar
Nittle, N. K. (2020, August 26). The U.S. government’s role in sterilizing women of color. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/u-s-governments-role-sterilizing-women-of-color-2834600Google Scholar
Pearlman, L. A., & MacIan, P. S. (1995). Vicarious traumatization: An empirical study of the effects of trauma work on trauma therapists. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 26(6), 558565.Google Scholar
Perry, D. M. (2017, July 27) Our long, troubling history of sterilizing the incarcerated. The Marshall Project. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/07/26/our-long-troubling-history-of-sterilizing-the-incarceratedGoogle Scholar
Poussaint, A. F., & Alexander, A. (2000). Lay my burdens down. Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, A. L., Austin, S. B., Corliss, H. L., Vandermorris, A. K., & Koenen, K. C. (2010). Pervasive trauma exposure among US sexual orientation minority adults and risk of posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Public Health, 100(12), 24332441.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roth, R., & Ainsworth, S. L. (2015). If they hand you a paper, you sign it: A call to end the sterilization of women in prison. Hastings Women’s Law Journal, 26, 750.Google Scholar
Saar, M. S., Epstein, R., Rosenthal, L., & Vafa, Y. (2015). The sexual abuse to prison pipeline: The girls’ story. Human Rights Project for Girls and Center for Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown University Law Center.Google Scholar
Sawyer, W. (2019). How race impacts who is detained pretrial. Prison Policy Initiative https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/10/09/pretrial_race/Google Scholar
Settles, I. H., Warner, L. R., Buchanan, N. T., & Jones, M. K. (2020). Understanding psychology’s resistance to intersectionality theory using a framework of epistemic exclusion and invisibility. Journal of Social Issues, 76(4), 796813.Google Scholar
Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, Committee on Early Childhood, Adoption, and Dependent Care, and Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232e246.Google Scholar
Snyder, H. N. (2000). Sexual assault of young children as reported to law enforcement: Victim, incident, and offender characteristics: A statistical report using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.Google Scholar
Sotero, M. (2006). A conceptual model of historical trauma: Implications for public health practice and research. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, 1(1), 93108.Google Scholar
Strauss Swanson, C., & Szymanski, D. M. (2020). From pain to power: An exploration of activism, the #Metoo movement, and healing from sexual assault trauma. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 67(6), 653668.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. SAMHSA’s Trauma and Justice Strategic Initiative. https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/userfiles/files/SAMHSA_Trauma.pdfGoogle Scholar
Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (1996). The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9(3), 455471.Google Scholar
Victor, D. (2017, November 22). Why celebrities have rallied behind Cyntoia Brown, a woman spending life in prison. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/us/cyntoia-brown-sex-trafficking.htmlGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, E. J., Whiting, J. B., Watson, M. F., Russon, J. M., & Moncrief, A. M. (2013). Residual effects of slavery: What clinicians need to know. Contemporary Family Therapy, 35(1), 1428.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×