African American identity is racialized. And this racialized identity has animated and shaped political resistance to racism. Hidden, though, are the psychological implications of rooting identity in race, especially because American history is inseparable from the trauma of slavery. In Trauma and Race author Sheldon George begins with the fact that African American racial identity is shaped by factors both historical and psychical. Employing the work of Jacques Lacan, George demonstrates how slavery is a psychic event repeated through the agencies of racism and inscribed in racial identity itself. The trauma of this past confronts the psychic lack that African American racial identity both conceals and traumatically unveils for the African American subject. Trauma and Race investigates the vexed, ambivalent attachment of African Americans to their racial identity, exploring the ways in which such attachment is driven by traumatic, psychical urgencies that often compound or even exceed the political exigencies called forth by racism.

2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award - Multicultural 2021 Christianity Today Book Award - Christian Living/Discipleship Award Publishers Weekly starred review "People of color have endured traumatic histories and almost daily assaults on our dignity. We have prayed about racism, been in denial, or acted out in anger, but we have not known how to individually or collectively pursue healing from the racial trauma." As a child, Sheila Wise Rowe was bused across town to a majority white school, where she experienced the racist lie that one group is superior to all others. This lie continues to be perpetuated today by the action or inaction of the government, media, viral videos, churches, and within families of origin. In contrast, Scripture declares that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Rowe, a professional counselor, exposes the symptoms of racial trauma to lead readers to a place of freedom from the past and new life for the future. In each chapter, she includes an interview with a person of color to explore how we experience and resolve racial trauma. With Rowe as a reliable guide who has both been on the journey and shown others the way forward, you will find a safe pathway to resilience.

With the polarizing issue regarding immigration in the United States, we are currently living in a time where the debates and controversy surrounding these instances are fueled. In this book, Dr. Pratyusha Tummala-Narra assembles a diverse group of experts to examine the struggles, trauma, and resilient actions of those who are forced to leave behind their families and livelihood. With author expertise ranging from psychology of prejudice and historical trauma to clinical and community-based interventions, this book teaches the impact of the sociopolitical climate on racial minority immigrants, as well as highlights theory, research, and practice concerning the various types of trauma and oppression faced.

Racial Trauma in the School System provides foundational and clinical information for school-based mental health professionals to better understand and address the nuanced experience of racial trauma in their school. The book focuses on conceptualizing racial trauma and the impact it has on a child’s development and academic functioning, providing information on how to look at racially based experiences through a trauma-informed lens. Examining a wide range of racial and ethnic identities, chapters explore critical issues such as ethno-racial identity development and diagnostic classifications to help readers develop a conceptual lens to guide their approach. The clinical application of theory to practice is emphasized using complex case studies and the explanation of practical interventions. This text is the first of its kind to focus exclusively on discussing the impact of racial trauma on children and to discuss the intersection between identity and racism in the school system. Geared toward school-based professionals, this book considers racial trauma across a wide range of contexts and clinical presentations for other mental health professionals to adapt and apply the content to their clinical practice.

African American identity is racialized. And this racialized identity has animated and shaped political resistance to racism. Hidden, though, are the psychological implications of rooting identity in race, especially because American history is inseparable from the trauma of slavery. In Trauma and Race author Sheldon George begins with the fact that African American racial identity is shaped by factors both historical and psychical. Employing the work of Jacques Lacan, George demonstrates how slavery is a psychic event repeated through the agencies of racism and inscribed in racial identity itself. The trauma of this past confronts the psychic lack that African American racial identity both conceals and traumatically unveils for the African American subject. Trauma and Race investigates the vexed, ambivalent attachment of African Americans to their racial identity, exploring the ways in which such attachment is driven by traumatic, psychical urgencies that often compound or even exceed the political exigencies called forth by racism.

In this first interdisciplinary study of all nine of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison's novels, Evelyn Jaffe Schreiber investigates how the communal and personal trauma of slavery embedded in the bodies and minds of its victims lives on through successive generations of African Americans. Approaching trauma from several cutting-edge theoretical perspectives -- psychoanalytic, neurobiological, and cultural and social theories -- Schreiber analyzes the lasting effects of slavery as depicted in Morrison's work and considers the almost insurmountable task of recovering from trauma to gain subjectivity. With an innovative application of neuroscience to literary criticism, Schreiber explains how trauma, whether initiated by physical abuse, dehumanization, discrimination, exclusion, or abandonment, becomes embedded in both psychic and bodily circuits. Slavery and its legacy of cultural rejection create trauma on individual, familial, and community levels, and parents unwittingly transmit their trauma to their children through repetition of their bodily stored experiences. Concepts of "home" -- whether a physical place, community, or relationship -- are reconstructed through memory to provide a positive self and serve as a healing space for Morrison's characters. Remembering and retelling trauma within a supportive community enables trauma victims to move forward and attain a meaningful subjectivity and selfhood. Through careful analysis of each novel, Schreiber traces the success or failure of Morrison's characters to build or rebuild a cohesive self, starting with slavery and the initial postslavery generation, and continuing through the twentieth century, with a special focus on the effects of inherited trauma on children. When characters attempt to escape trauma through physical relocation, or to project their pain onto others through aggressive behavior or scapegoating, the development of selfhood falters. Only when trauma is confronted through verbalization and challenged with reparative images of home, can memories of a positive self overcome the pain of past experiences and cultural rejection. While the cultural trauma of slavery can never truly disappear, Schreiber argues that memories that reconstruct a positive self, whether created by people, relationships, a physical place, or a concept, help Morrison's characters to establish subjectivity. A groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, Schreiber's book unites psychoanalytic, neurobiological, and social theories into a full and richly textured analysis of trauma and the possibility of healing in Morrison's novels.

This book provides in-depth analysis of the historical, philosophical, anthropological, political and neurobiological reinforcements of fear and the role of fear-on-fear interactions in the construction and maintenance of systems. This text will help systems appreciate the profound, pervasive and deleterious role fear has played in the establishment of laws, policies and practices, and explore what systems can do to reduce fear and prioritize safety and healing. Right now we are dealing with hard truths: human suffering runs deep and is universal; trauma is ubiquitous and widespread; racism is real and has profound psychological, physical, political, social and economic implications; and the world is hurting and needs healing. Many are curious about where and when healing will commence, who will facilitate it and what it will look and feel like. Healing comes in this order: safety, truth and then reconciliation. When we know better, we can (or should) certainly do better. This book offers a framework for how to effectively begin to deconstruct systemic fear, prioritize safety, reduce needless suffering and move toward optimal healing and sustained change.