Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Psychology)

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.

For racial minority immigrants in the United States, trauma can have both historical and ongoing sources. Today’s immigrants face a dangerous mix of rising nationalism and xenophobia, alarming rates of displacement within and across nations, war, trafficking, terrorism, and deportation. Multiple traumas stem from these experiences and can be exacerbated by interpersonal violence and other forms of marginalization within communities. This book examines the lasting impact of trauma for racial minority immigrants and subsequent generations.
 
Each chapter explores both the stress and resilience of immigrant groups in the United States, as well as clinical or community-based efforts to address the multiple traumas that affect immigrants and their children. While considering the socioecological contexts of immigrants, the chapters reflect a diversity of theoretical perspectives needed to expand existing treatments for trauma, such as multicultural, feminist, womanist, psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic theories.
 
In the nuanced pages of this book, you will deepen your understanding of the immigrant experience and develop professional skills to help heal traumatic stress faced by racial minority immigrants.
 

Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College. She is also in independent practice in Cambridge, MA. Her scholarship focuses on immigration, trauma, and cultural competence and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She has served as the chair of the Multicultural Concerns Committee and as member-at-large in APA Division 39 (Psychoanalysis), and as a member of the APA Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs, the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, and the APA Task Force on Revising the Multicultural Guidelines. She is author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy.