Black Lives Matter movement currently caused online sensation globally after the demise of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, negatively affecting the psychological wellbeing of individuals of color. George Floyd was executed by police officers who captured him for the supposed utilization of a fake $20 note in 2020 (Jaye, 2020). Police cruelty and prevalent fundamental prejudice signify current and past causes of Black people group trauma. The Black Lives Matter protests seek to challenge these truths at various levels. The movement tries intensifying foundational prejudice awareness and encourages flexibility amongst Black people. According to research on Police brutality, it was assessed that in 2015, 366 unarmed black people were killed by the police in the united states (Alvarez et al., 2016).
As per the 2015 insights distributed by ‘The Guardian,’ the rate of Black people being killed was twice that of non-Latino White people, besides the probability of Black men dying in police officers’ hands was more significant than other Americans (Alvarez et al., 2016). Various prominent killings of defenseless Black men were experienced in the past decade in police hands. Regardless of whether police murders of Black people are prominent or not, the findings show that black people’s extrajudicial assassinations are typical and excessively greater than other ethnic or racial groups (Jaye, 2020). Inability to illegally convict and charge numerous officers keeps on powering fights and demonstrations. The Black Lives Matter movement takes into consideration such and more racial equity issues.
When People of Color and Indigenous people (POCI) respond to perilous occasions and genuine or seen encounters of racial segregation, they experience racial trauma. Such encounters may incorporate fears of injury and harm, embarrassing and disgracing occasions, and seeing other people of color being segregated (Comas-Díaz et al., 2019). Though comparable to a post-traumatic stress disorder, racial trauma remains extraordinary because it encompasses continuous individual and communal injuries because of openness re-exposure to ethnic-based stress. In any case, the knee on George Floyd’s neck was figurative of how incalculable individuals of color have experienced and felt life for quite a long time; it has carried to the surface some profound emotions (Jaye, 2020). However, acquiring the correct help to manage the racial trauma can be problematic.
Psychotherapists usually recognize that a patient may respond to ongoing occasions whose foundation is past (Alvarez et al., 2016). Regarding fundamental prejudice, it may incorporate still fresh cross-generational scars. Some examples include social and mental trauma inherited from past generations since parents who migrated to the US and UK during the slave trade era, aggression such as “No Dogs, No Irish, No Blacks” symbols, and Louisiana grandparents who witnessed the weighty and brutal authorization of Jim Crow laws of racial isolation (Jaye, 2020). Knowing such traumatic accounts of endurance can situate individuals of color since the tender age to trust that their present world is an undermining one – demonstrated by their overall society and interactions.
Just like the encounters of events, trauma reactions are intricate and exceptional wholly. There is no comprehensive solution; however, a trauma-informed care approach can provide guidance on how to react with attention and sympathy. Various researchers and specialists have created mental ways to assist recuperate from racial trauma (Alvarez et al., 2016). The methodologies vary from collaborative strategies to ethnopolitical intervention, Group counseling, and psychotherapy. Psychologists embrace an ethnopolitical method when working with ethnologically segregated patients; such a methodology acknowledges the effect of racism and coercion (Comas-Díaz et al., 2019). It is contended that counselors should assume an antiracist position in their therapeutic responsibilities; in other words, the counselor should not intellectualize, limit, or overlook racism. It should be acknowledged that various therapeutic strategies have proven effective when it comes to trauma survivors.
The proof-based treatments incorporate but then are not restricted to reprocessing and desensitization, eye movement, psychopharmacology, exposure therapy, mental therapy, and supportive group psychotherapy (Alvarez et al., 2016). Notwithstanding the therapeutic methodology or theoretic angle, it is recommended that counselors attending to survivors of ethnic-based trauma discover and handle the subsequent subjects: affirmation of the injury, sharing the injury, self-care, and safety, grieving the misfortunes, disgrace, internalized prejudice, outrage, adapting methodologies, and confrontation approaches (Comas-Díaz et al., 2019). To facilitate an effective evaluation and intervention, a therapist should establish a safe therapeutic atmosphere for patients to uncover racist encounters comfortably.
Psychotherapy for individuals of color should be a place of refuge where they can discuss the racial injury, affirming that their encounters will be heard and unafraid it will be utilized as a weapon to repress them—for instance, being accused of utilizing “the race card” to get sympathy or to escape social responsibilities (Comas-Díaz et al., 2019). It is prescribed that therapists grow socially informed recuperating approaches and methodologically modern research that desire to consider public policy interventions incorporated in racial trauma matters. Furthermore, socially able and morally capable therapists should react to reports of xenophobic occurrence-based trauma with approval, aptitude, and empathy, as they ought to some other ordeal. While in the therapeutic session, therapists should consider at all costs resist silence, avoid showing signs of discomfort, or compromising patient’s comfort; instead, one should explore and assess ethnic-based trauma. Although it may take longer to address the system causes of racial trauma, policies and reforms should be established in social institutions and even the government to eliminate racism (Alvarez et al., 2016). All human lives matter and should be respected and treated with the weight it carries.
References
Comas-Díaz, L., Hall, G. N., & Neville, H. A. (2019). Racial Trauma: Theory, research, and healing: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 74(1), 1.
Alvarez, A. N., Liang, C. T., & Neville, H. A. (2016). The cost of racism for people of color: Contextualizing experiences of discrimination (pp. xv-356). American Psychological Association.
Jaye, L. (2020). Why race matters when it comes to mental health. Bbc.com. Retrieved 22 April 2021, from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200804-black-lives-matter-protests-race-mental-health-therapy.
