Post Traumatic Growth with Black Males Who Experience Racial Trauma

Written by Serie McDougal III

    Recently Raja Staggers-Hakim (2016) wrote an article called The Nation’s Unprotected Children and the Ghost of Mike Brown, or the Impact of National Police Killings on the Health and Social Development of African American Boys. Here he discusses the impact of national police brutality cases and extrajudicial killings on the social development, mental health, and overall wellbeing of young African American males.  Staggers-Hakim (2016) also discusses recommendations for social policies.  With new investigations of police-induced trauma, researchers tend to want to move toward discussing solutions—which is no doubt important.  However, there are very few investigations that move beyond discussing the need for solutions such as healing, to actually explaining the very processes for healing. 

    It is well known that the continuous experience of racism can lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (emotional stress, physical harm, and fear).  Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy (2016) do more than merely explain post-traumatic stress disorder, and propose a process for guiding Black males toward post traumatic growth (PTG).  According to these researchers, PTG can be achieved through strategies incorporated into the provision of counseling services. PTG is defined as an individual’s experience of positive change and resiliency following a traumatic life event (Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy, 2016).  Research tends to focus on the devastating consequences racial trauma, although between 30 and 90 percent of people who experience trauma experience positive growth and change (Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy, 2016).  2007).
    Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy (2016) present a number of specific recommendations for providing culturally sensitive PTG treatment for working with African American men who have experienced race-based trauma:

• Deliberation and Remuneration: helps individuals restructure their challenged perceptions and outlook, and derive meaning from the traumatic event(s). Counselors can do this by celebrating racial/gender identity through meaning making activities, countering negative perceptions of self, training in relaxation techniques, and promoting self-efficacy and self-esteem.  The counselor may also help the client acknowledge the prevalence of racial discrimination. Lastly, it is important to appraise the traumatic event and acknowledge a client’s reaction to it as normal.

• Disclosure of Race-based Trauma: involves counselors working to identify the trauma and help the client find significance in the discrimination by focusing on coping, resilience, and purposeful living.  Counselors should work with clients to acknowledge the kinds of skills that can be achieved through suffering, such as empathy for others, a determination to be an agent for change, and desire to leave a legacy for future generations of African Americans. 

• Social and Cultural Factors: refers to accessing a network of people who provide the client with care and concern.  This is necessary so that individuals can speak to others about racist experiences as a way to cope.  Such a network not only provides the client with a sense of connectedness when sharing their experiences, network members can also share effective ways of coping.  If appropriate, counselors may also use clients’ religiosity and spirituality as a coping tool, which provides social support, explanations for negative events, as well as methods of coping.  Although, counselors ought to be mindful of negative religious coping which is typically characterized by belief in an angry and punitive deity. 

These strategies are recommended to counselors so that they can address the trauma of Black males who experience racist discrimination.  Evans, Hemmings, Burkhalter, & Lacy’s (2016) research is among few who actually lay out strategies that address the kind of trauma that comes as a result of racist events police abuse and brutality. This approach to processes of healing also acknowledges and promotes the resilience of those who experience such events. 
 

Works Cited 
Evans, A. M., Hemmings, C., Burkhalter, C., & Lacy, V. (2016). Responding to race related trauma:    Counseling and research recommendations to promote post-traumatic growth when counseling African American males. Journal of Counselor Preparation & Supervision, 8(1), 78- 103.

Staggers-Hakim, R. (2016). The nation’s unprotected children and the ghost of Mike Brown, or the impact of national police killings on the health and social development of African American boys. Journal of Human Behavior in The Social Environment, 26.