The effects of race-based trauma for Black Americans & the development of resilience specific to these traumas

Research in the area of trauma and resilience has come a long way; particularly when it comes to the impact trauma has on development, the structure and functionality of the brain, as well as health, social and emotional outcomes. Research on trauma has almost exclusively focused on the negative impact trauma has on the developing brain and body and a person’s decreased ability to self-regulate and self-sooth. Research has shown that attachment or a positive and healthy relationship can significantly combat the negative effects of trauma. In recent years, the inclusion of race-based trauma, that is insidious emotional wounds enduring across generations directed at person or group of people due to their ethnicity, such as the killings of Black Americans has altered the landscape for understanding trauma. For example, in the original adverse childhood experience (ACE) pyramid, adoption of health risk behavior as an outcome of trauma becomes coping in the extended ACE’s pyramid defined by historical trauma. This study seeks to expand upon the current literature of race-based trauma, the general and specific developmental effects race-based trauma has for Black Americans that is distinct yet akin to all other forms of trauma as well as identify factors that contribute to the development of resilience specific to this group as it relates specifically to race-based trauma.