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A large body of research has established a relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and adverse effects on mental and physical health. Robert T. Carter and Alex L. Pieterse offer a manual for mental health professionals on how to understand, assess, and treat the effects of racism as a psychological injury.
List of contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. What We Know About Racism and Stress
1. Terms and Concepts Defined
2. Understanding Reactions to Stress: Trauma, Traumatic Stress, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
3. Redefining Racism: Documenting Racism’s Effects
4. Variations in Responses to Racial Discrimination
Part II. What We Need to Know About Racial Trauma
5. Race-Based Traumatic Stress as Racial Trauma
6. Measuring Race-Based Traumatic Stress
7. Empirical Research Evidence Associated with the Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale
8. The Short Form and the Interview Schedule of the Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale
Part III. What to Do with What We Know: Practice Applications
9. Clinical Applications of the Race-Based Traumatic Stress Model
10. A Guide to Forensic Assessment: Clinical Applications
11. Training Mental Health Professionals to Treat Racial Trauma
12. Emerging Issues in Practice and Research
Appendix A: RBTSSS-Short Form (RBTSSS-SF)
Appendix B: Carter-Vinson Race-Based Traumatic Stress Interview Schedule
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Robert T. Carter is professor emeritus of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His books include Confronting Racism: Integrating Mental Health Research Into Legal Strategies and Reforms (2019).
Alex L. Pieterse is associate professor and director of doctoral training in the program of counseling psychology at the State University of New York at Albany. He also serves as a racial diversity consultant and practices as a licensed psychologist.
Summary
A large body of research has established a causal relationship between experiences of racial discrimination and adverse effects on mental and physical health. In Measuring the Effects of Racism, Robert T. Carter and Alex L. Pieterse offer a manual for mental health professionals on how to understand, assess, and treat the effects of racism as a psychological injury.
Carter and Pieterse provide guidance on how to recognize the psychological effects of racism and racial discrimination. They propose an approach to understanding racism that connects particular experiences and incidents with a person’s individual psychological and emotional response. They detail how to evaluate the specific effects of race-based encounters that produce psychological distress and possibly impairment or trauma. Carter and Pieterse outline therapeutic interventions for use with individuals and groups who have experienced racial trauma, and they draw attention to the importance of racial awareness for practitioners. The book features a racial-trauma assessment toolkit, including a race-based traumatic-stress symptoms scale and interview schedule. Useful for both scholars and practitioners, including social workers, educators, and counselors, Measuring the Effects of Racism offers a new framework of race-based traumatic stress that helps legitimize psychological reactions to experiences of racism.
Additional text
Measuring the Effects of Racism is the definitive guide to understanding the scope of the psychological impact of racism. Providing a clear and comprehensive conceptual framework and assessment strategy, Carter and Pieterse have written a book that will be of great benefit to educators, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.
