Healing Requires Recognition

Abstract

Race-based traumatic stress has been studied in the literature under various names including but not limited to insidious trauma, intergenerational trauma, racist incident-based trauma, psychological trauma, and racism. This article reviews and analyzes R. T. Carter’s article in this issue. The author underscores and reacts to the trauma of racism as discussed in Carter’s article, and also highlights efforts that should be directed to racist incident-based trauma counseling. Counselors have to be trained to effectively conduct assessment and interventions with clients who have been victimized by race-based traumas. In addition, counselors should be aware that intersecting identities can result in multiple traumas or forms of oppression, such as 1 client experiencing racism, sexism, poverty, and heterosexism. While it is important to study the dynamics of race-based traumatic stress within the United States, as Carter comprehensively does, it is also essential for counselors to examine and respond to race-based traumatic stress internationally.