The Truth About Treating Trauma in Communities of Color
I want to talk about trauma because it is present in the lives of so many people. It’s at the forefront of conversations in the health and wellness world where the term “trauma-informed” is widely used, yet still so misunderstood in terms of how to aid in the healing process of others. This is particularly challenging in communities of color where helping professionals rarely represent the communities in which they serve. This disconnect can lead to misunderstandings, misdiagnoses, and even death.
The enormous and evident health disparities in the United States, and the widespread discussion of Trauma-Informed Care, led me to begin researching and exploring what it looks like when it is practiced. This includes incorporating cultural humility when working with diverse communities, and while being culturally humble is essential to being trauma-informed, it is often embraced as another theoretical “buzzword'' on the block and is rarely applied. In over 20 years of providing counseling and therapeutic services in underserved communities, I have discovered 4 critical steps in the process of helping others heal.
The first is to tell the truth about how the majority of traumatic experiences are directly correlated to greed, money, and power resulting in wars, slavery, and racism. I clearly recall my graduate school professor amplifying that, “If we refuse to look at the root causes of our societal issues, we will continue to treat only the symptoms and perpetuate what’s underneath.” America has a longstanding history and current practice of ignoring or minimizing the impact of the historical and generational trauma it has caused - and so it is up to us to illuminate it.
Step two involves opening the conversation with respectful curiosity (also known as Appreciative Inquiry). Our primary objective should focus on becoming knowledgeable regarding the experiences of others. We say that people are the experts on their own lives, yet we quickly move into prescribing and advising before we have had an opportunity to hear their story.
Trauma impacts everyone differently, and particularly when collaborating with communities of color, it is important that their story be told and honored. It is popular nowadays to be viewed as an anti-racist wellness professional, and we talk about de-colonizing our practice; yet it is more important that we have the skills to do so. As such, we should be routinely educating ourselves around how racism, all of the other isms, and dimensions of diversity are woven into the fabric of traumatic experiences of individuals, families, and the collective community.
We must listen at the highest level to the unique story of who is in front of us so that we learn how trauma has impacted their lives, and the ways they have coped and survived. We must be aware of our biases while listening for their strengths. We must validate the power within the person and honor their level of resiliency. Dr. Kenneth Hardy speaks to how instrumental the affirmation and validation process is in his article, “Healing the Hidden Wounds of Racial Trauma.” 1
Step 3, which is often the most challenging, is our ability to avoid internalizing our client behaviors that have been labeled as problematic or aggressive. When our clients display strong emotions, our brains begin to immediately pathologize them. Far too often in our best intentions to help, we get too caught up in seeing the person as having or being a problem instead of someone who went through something traumatizing and is still standing. Being trauma-informed and culturally humble is being able to sit with our discomfort while holding space for their pain absent of shaming or blaming them for it.
Lastly, we should ask our clients to give us feedback about how we show up for them, what we are doing well, and where we need to improve. This flattens the power inherently in the professional/client dynamic. and co-creates the true relationship-building process which is essential to establishing trust. Simply building rapport is not enough. We must be consciously connecting with others so that we can begin to learn from them how to walk with them on their healing journey.
We should be so privileged to be invited.
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Hardy, Kenneth V. "Healing the hidden wounds of racial trauma." Reclaiming Children and Youth 22.1 (2013): 24.