Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress, is the cumulative effects of racism on an individual’s mental and physical health.
[12] People experiencing racial trauma may suffer from a wide variety of psychological and/or physiological symptoms.
Psychological symptoms include intrusive thoughts, social withdrawal, hypervigilance, low self-worth, worry, and depression.
A 2020 study by Saleem and colleagues[16] have created a model which suggests that children experience different symptoms of racial trauma depending on their stage of development.
Racial trauma is not included in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), since it does not meet the current criteria.
According to them, racial trauma evokes symptoms similar to that of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), hence the push for its recognition as a viable mental health concern.
[1][17] The effects race-based traumatic stress have on individuals depend on their experiences, and the ways in which it can manifest itself can vary significantly as well.
[8] Another concern among people who are hesitant to label racial trauma as some form of mental illness is that diagnoses using the DSM-V may incorrectly convey that such a diagnosis exists within the individual—rather than results from systemic shortcomings.
[22] It can also leave people who suffer from racial trauma symptoms prone to experiencing both external and internalized stigma regarding mental illness.
[23][24] People of color experience different sources of social and institutional stress in their daily lives.
Developing a strong sense of one’s cultural identity, engaging with social support, and communicating the consequences of racism have all seemed to foster healing from racial trauma.
Viewing resilience collectively not only better aligns with some communities who suffer more often from racial trauma—but also enables a lens in which healing from trauma can be contextualized as work that must be done on a systemic level too.