Healing From Racial Trauma: Rhythm, Processing, and Anti-Racist Psychotherapy - Conference Closing

This session is available for 1.50 APA and ASWB credits.

The racial justice protests of 2020 were an opportunity to unite people of all backgrounds. Instead, the denial of racism and other forms of misinformation were responses taken by some news outlets and members of the public. Similarly, within the clinical context, there are always opportunities to create significant changes in the lives of our clients. However, some therapeutic approaches do not make adequate considerations for race, gender, and other socially constructed identities. Faced with dissociation and intrusions from the past, the racial trauma survivor also experiences a hostile social and political context in the present. Mental health professionals have an obligation to consider all aspects of the client or they can risk being complicit in the social denial of trauma, especially racial trauma. This presentation will explore the mental health consequences of racial trauma as well as a new integrative clinical framework meant to assist racial trauma survivors. The goal of Anti-Racist Psychotherapy (ARP) is to enable both therapist and client to understand, confront, and deconstruct the mental health and social consequences of racial trauma. Emerging from the principles of ARP, Rhythm and Processing (RAP) is an integrative clinical framework that is designed to address the intrapsychic and interpersonal difficulties that concern complex PTSD, racial trauma, and other identity-based stressors. RAP consists of strategies that are informed by the theoretical principles of ARP, EMDR therapy, structural dissociation, polyvagal theory and memory reconsolidation. An explanation and description of the framework will take place as well as special considerations for its usage and implementation.