‘Cultural Humility’ Key to Healing Racial Trauma, Psychiatrist Says

The widespread publicization of violent police encounters with Black people combined with the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 deaths on the Black community is “fuel for psychological trauma,” wrote psychiatrist Gowri Aragam, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and colleagues in anarticle published Wednesday inJAMA Psychiatry.What can clinicians do to help people experiencing ethno-racial trauma —the individual and/or collective psychological distress and fear arising from experiencing or witnessing discrimination, threats of harm, violence, and intimidation directed at ethno-racial minority groups?“Addressing this issue requires a systematic approach that involves recognizing and treating symptoms of racialized trauma while eliminating barriers to care at the clinician, organizational, and system levels,” Aragam and colleagues wrote.As a starting point, the authors recommend that clinicians take steps to optimize their interactions with patients with values, backgrounds, and experiences different from their own. “The hallmark features of adopting a culturally humble lens (for example, critical self-reflection, openness, nonjudgment, and curiosity) have shown benefits in treatment, such as strengthening the therapeutic alliance and improving outcomes,” they wrote.Such “cultural humility provides a framework for researchers and clinicians to (1) facilitate dialogue about the impact of race and racism on a person’s mental heal...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: 5Rs of Cultural Humility COVID-19 JAMA Psychiatry police violence trauma University of Connecticut Racial/Ethnic Stress & Trauma Scale Source Type: research