Sponsor Shout Out
This episode is sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is an international, non-profit, professional association organized to develop and promote comprehensive, clinically effective and empirically based resources and responses to trauma and dissociation and to address its relevance to other theoretical constructs.
To learn more and become a member, visit: https://www.isst-d.org/
Visit https://cfas.isst-d.org/ to access educational offerings for both professionals and non-professionals
Summary
What if healing trauma started with a wider lens—one that includes history, culture, policy, and the daily negotiations of belonging? We sit down with clinical psychologist and researcher Usha Timolinarra to examine how immigration, racism, and collective memory shape individual symptoms, family dynamics, and community resilience. The conversation moves from the shift in care from “what’s wrong” to “what happened, to the include social, economic and political contexts, among others. Context matters, across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Usha unpacks dissociation as more than detachment, describing a dual sense of self that many immigrants and their children develop to survive competing expectations. We explore the costs and strengths of compartmentalization, the normalization of silence around sexual violence among Indian American and Mexican American families, and why breaking that silence can threaten belonging even as it opens space to heal. Listeners hear how survivors bridge Western psychotherapy with community-rooted and indigenous practices, building bicultural healing that honors both science and tradition.
For therapists, we dive into staying steady in a volatile sociopolitical climate: tending to our own stress, practicing lifelong cultural learning, and inviting specificity around shame, guilt, and identity. Usha illustrates how psychoanalytic concepts—defense, transference, countertransference—become more powerful when joined with a social lens that recognizes racism, colorism, and policy as active forces in the room. We track practical routes from therapy to impact: mentoring students, briefings on the Hill during the DREAM Act era, and using media to translate data with empathy and urgency.
We also tackle the debate on racial trauma as a diagnosis, the lived effects of chronic racism, and Usha’s current research on early-career psychologists of color and the intergenerational legacy of colorism. The throughline is hope with a backbone: speak truth, remember history, and keep widening the range of possible futures for our clients, our communities, and ourselves. If this resonates, follow the show, share with a colleague, and leave a review so more listeners can find these conversations.
Learn more about Dr. Tummala-Narra here:
Chapters
0:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction
1:52 ISSTD Shout Out
2:59. Origins Of a Sociocultural Trauma Lens
5:03. Lifespan & Context
6:40. Sociocultural Trauma & Resistance
8:25. What We Misunderstand About History
10:36 Speaking About Harm Without Stereotyping
12:11. Dissociation, Dual Selves & Adaptation
13:49. Hidden Burdens And Strengths In Immigration
16:03. Multicultural Healing: Therapy & Tradition
18:01. Safety, Belonging & Vigilance Today
19:36 Shame, Guilt & Cultural Specifics
21:13. Training Therapists For A Changing World
23:24. Hopes: Keep Naming Sociocultural Trauma
24:18. Psychoanalysis Meets Oppression Studies
26:01. From Room To Ripple: Wider Impact
28:19. Advocacy, Policy, And The Hill
30:29. Messaging For Media And Policymakers
31:28. Caring For Clinicians’ Vulnerabilities
33:10. Resources And Where To Learn More
34:21. Should Racial Trauma Be A Diagnosis
35:27. Current Research And Upcoming Talks
36:46. What Brings Hope And Joy
38:06. Closing Reflections
Full Transcript
Lisa Danylchuk: 0:04
Welcome back to the How We Can Heal podcast. Today, our guest is Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, whose work is dedicated to making psychotherapy more culturally responsive and to understanding how race, immigration, and trauma intersect in shaping mental health.unknown: 0:20
Dr. Tummala-Narra is a clinical psychologist and professor of counseling, developmental, and educational psychology at Boston College. She's also a practicing clinician who works directly with survivors of trauma from diverse cultural backgrounds. Her research explores how experiences of racism, displacement, and oppression shape the inner lives of immigrants and communities of color, and how psychotherapy can be transformed to genuinely meet those needs. She encourages us to ask whose stories are being heard and whose healing is being centered. Dr. Tummala-Narra is the author of three books published by the American Psychological Association Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy, Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants, Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance, and applying multiculturalism, an ecological approach, to the multicultural guidelines. She's ranked among the top 2% of most cited scholars worldwide by Stanford University, is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and has received countless awards for her contributions to the field of psychology. With all these accomplishments, what stands out the most is the depth, clarity, and deep care at the center of her work. I'm so grateful to have this conversation with her here today and to share it with you. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Tummala-Narra to the show.
I want to give a big shout out and extend a huge thank you to the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, the ISSTD, for sponsoring this episode. If you've been listening to this podcast, you've heard me talk about ISSTD and the incredible researchers, clinicians, and advocates I've met during my time as a member and a volunteer there. The ISSTD has been delving into the science and best practice of treating trauma and dissociation for over 40 years, and they have a rich catalog of educational offerings for both professionals and non-professionals on their website, cfas.isst-d.org. If you're a mental health professional, I highly recommend you consider becoming a member of ISSTD. I'd love to see you during the live educational offerings and at the annual conference in Portland, Oregon in March of 2026. Visit isst-d.org to learn more.
Welocme, Dr. Tummala-Narra
Thank you, Lisa. It's good to be here.
I'm curious to learn a little more about you and how you got into this work.
SPEAKER_01: 3:07
Yeah, so I'm trained as a clinical psychologist, and um I trained in the 1990s in my doctoral program in clinical psychology at Michigan State University. And um one of the mentors that I was working with was focused more on community psychology. She was a community clinical psychologist, and then another set of mentors were more psychodynamically oriented. But one of the overlaps between all of this mentorship had to do with trauma and certainly context as it relates to trauma. So that sort of stirred an interest in me. And then later on in my internship and my postdoctoral training, that became more and more the focus of my work to understand how social context intersected with traumatic stress, the macro level processes that not only inflict trauma, but also perpetuate traumatic stress, both on an individual and a collective level. So that's where the interest began and it's been expanding since.Lisa Danylchuk: 4:16
Yeah, and there's plenty there to expand into. I find myself thinking of the shift in the field between what's wrong with you to what happened to you. And this feels like a bigger, wider question. Like, what are you swimming in? What's around you? What's your environment? How are you being treated? What are those foundational relationships, not just in your family, but in your wider community and world?SPEAKER_01: 4:38
That's right. Yeah. And I think more recently there's a recognition that even something very basic like taking an intake or taking a developmental history and trying to understand that the focus ought not to just be on the family and the immediate kind of surround of where a child develops within the home, but also what's happening outside the home, including schools and neighborhoods, social media, other influences, and seeing it as more of a lifespan issue, too, that it's not constricted to childhood, but actually everything that happens beyond childhood and adolescence shapes how people feel and what kind of access they have to support, and what healing actually even looks like at different developmental stages.Lisa Danylchuk: 5:29
There's so much richness, right? If you're looking at the entire lifespan and you're not just looking at traumatic stress, but you're also looking at the context of where that was caused or where that's attempting to heal. There's a lot of different angles you could go in on. So I'm curious in your work right now, what is standing out to you as the most fulfilling or engaging for you?SPEAKER_01: 5:52
Yeah, so since my early career days, I have been increasingly interested in sociocultural traumas and how they intersect with interpersonal violence and interpersonal traumas. And so for me, I've been interested in what happens within families and communities, but also the kinds of traumatic stress that, in particular, racial minorities and immigrant communities endure and what they do to try to resist and challenge stereotypes and racism, and also manage some of the discriminatory and traumatic stress that they endure within their families and communities. So it's this compounded within group and out-group marginalization that I've become much more interested in recent years.Lisa Danylchuk: 6:44
Yeah, and I think there's increasing awareness in the US of these dynamics at a larger scale. It's not like they're new, but people are reading more books about race and racism or trying to have some of these difficult conversations, you know, in different circles. I know there's all kinds of things happening in different places in different ways. But I'm wondering what you wish people knew. Is there any kind of perspective or tool that you find yourself repeating in this day and age when we're grappling so much with issues of racism and the way people who immigrated to the US? And I mean, that's a large scope of people, actually, right? Almost pretty much everyone except native populations are immigrants here. But do you have something that you feel like, oh, I just wish I could get this understanding out there?SPEAKER_01: 7:35
Yeah, there are a few things that come to mind. One is I wish that we had a more collective understanding of the histories that underlie immigration and race in this country in general. And to really recognize and understand it with more depth rather than I think what ends up happening is more of a superficial understanding of US history and also global history. So histories of colonization and slavery that are, you know, at the moment being suppressed in terms of their expression and investigation. And so the ability to remember collective traumas and their impacts on communities and people is, I think, a large part of what we need to understand as mental health professionals. It's without having that kind of historical understanding or broader framework, it's hard to understand the intergenerational impacts of these kinds of traumas and also what people have been doing in terms of resistance, that these are not new types of traumas that are occurring today, but history is more or less repeating itself in some ways at the moment within our country and many parts of the world. And so to recognize and try to understand and inquire more about those kinds of histories and why they're so relevant to people today would be important. I think the other thing, one of the other things that I think is important to try to get a better sense of is that communities have stress that they're dealing with, and there's also resilience, you know, that there's this way in which we tend to see people as either victims or perpetrators. And so moving beyond the binary ways that we think about communities and trauma and survivors of trauma, I think is really important as well. And then the third thing I would say is to, is that we need to do a better job of recognizing why it's so hard for communities of color to and people of color to actually talk about the stress that they endure within their communities. Because oftentimes when we talk about things that happen within our communities, whether it's sexual abuse or physical violence or colorism discrimination that occurs within our communities, there's a tendency for people outside the communities then to stereotype us and pathologize people that we love and care about. And so there's there's a way, there's a propensity to over-generalize what the experience of racial minorities are, because our narratives or our stories are not the dominant story and in most places. And so there's a way in which we need to recognize the complexity of being able to talk very openly and honestly about traumatic stress within our communities as well as outside of our communities. So, in a way, people try, some people uh try to manage impressions of our communities by not talking about the deep level of stress that they experience in different contexts, actually.Lisa Danylchuk: 10:56
Yeah, you mentioned in a few different ways the suppression happening at a larger scale. You mentioned the not knowing of history, and then this sense of, well, there's risk if I admit to this stress within my community, even. And so I wonder how you think about that range of dissociation showing up. Do you think about it in those terms of there are these things that are suppressed that we that people don't want to talk about, but there are also these things that are really hard to talk about. How do you think about dissociation in this context?SPEAKER_01: 11:38
Yeah, I think dissociation is certainly one type of defense or strategy that people use. And at the same time, there's, I would say, alongside of dissociation, there's sometimes a compartmentalization that happens where it can start to feel like double consciousness in some sense when you're operating in one way in one context, so that you can be accepted or even heard or be visible in that context. And in other contexts, you're operating through a different sense of yourself. Alan Rowland, in the context of immigration, talked about a dual sense of self that develops where you're sort of there's a sense of fragmentation that sits alongside this flexibility that you can shift from one place to another. So there's this interesting way that it can feel like a strength in one way, even though it's a burden in another way. So along the lines of dissociation, there are these adaptive and burdensome aspects to that intrapsychic process that results from not being able to be fully yourself in any context and not being able to express yourself fully in any given context.Lisa Danylchuk: 12:56
Yeah, I'm curious about those burdens or the strengths that develop, the trauma and the resilience that shows up in, and I'm sure it's diverse within different populations and different individual experiences, but what are some themes that you see specific to immigration where there's a challenge that's maybe not seen or not talked about, or a strength that's not acknowledged or recognized?SPEAKER_01: 13:23
Yeah, so I can talk about this in the context of sexual violence. And I'll use the example of Indian American women and also Mexican American women because we the and I'm talking more about the 1.5 and second generation, so those who are primarily raised in the US or born in the US to immigrant parents. And one of the things, the reason I'm emphasizing these two communities is because my graduate students and I have worked on some qualitative studies focused on these communities in more recent years. And one of the things that really stands out to me that overlaps across these two communities is the way in which not talking about sex or sexual violence is more or less normalized for women and girls in particular. And we heard from many participants that the mothers or the grandmothers had also been abused in some form in their own lives and were preparing their girls and the women to try to prevent violence by maybe behaving differently or dressing differently, and but not necessarily helping them to speak openly about it. So there was deep concern about breaking up family ties, disrupting the harmony or at least the seeming harmony between family members. For some of our participants who were who are Mexican-American, they were concerned about family members being deported. So this connects directly to the policy and the social political climate that one is living in. But this kind of normalization of violence against women and girls was very much intertwined with having the whole family survive as a unit in a new country. And yet at the same time, that family connection was deeply important to these participants as well. So here you have this very complex situation. And at the same time, they wanted to do something differently with their own selves in moving into the future. So, for example, people who were who were parents wanted to teach their children very differently how to talk about sex and sexual violence for the next generation. They wanted to prepare them to uh understand what this actually was. And so they sought therapy for themselves. They talked to people, to therapists who were both from similar ethnic backgrounds and also different ethnic backgrounds. So they were trying new ways to engage with this issue and this problem, but also at the same time feeling quite isolated with it most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. So these are this is an example of how you have this kind of coexistence of stress and resilience that is it's a work in progress for most people because there are structures, the structures themselves are not in place to speak directly to what they're dealing with, both within their communities and outside their communities. And all of them spoke to the challenges of managing racism and not feeling comfortable talking to police or other people who could racially profile them and not knowing necessarily who to trust. So, and then they were also, in terms of a cultural perspective, they were also engaged in healing from a from more indigenous practices, whether that was yoga or sweat lodges or whatever it might be, that was as important as doing the therapy from more of a Western Euro-American perspective. So there was this bicultural way in which they were approaching how to understand trauma and traumatic stress as well as healing.Lisa Danylchuk: 17:27
Yeah. Because people have been experiencing trauma and healing from trauma in so many ways for so long. It didn't start in 1980 when we got the PTSD diagnosis for PTSM, right? So the strength of pulling on those traditions or culture or community, I also hear in that conflict between remaining attached or a part of the way things have been in the family, going along with expectations versus being yourself and going into new territory. And that can overlap too with the way that culture is moving through families, right? If there's a newer culture emerging in the younger generations, but it can also be a way of speaking a little more truth, right? Like, okay, well, we needed to not say that because it wasn't safe, but maybe it's safe enough for us to start talking about these things now. And that attachment piece of, well, is it safe enough for me to say that to my parents or the people who are caring for me and still have the care and relationship and support? And so that feels like such a larger than one person or one family dynamic because it's iterations of understanding of the impact of trauma and harm and also of the level of very real and perceived safety around can we talk about the is the risk too high? Do we need to continue to contain it in order to have some sense of survival, even sociological survival? Yes. Or is it safe enough that and we feel maybe grounded enough in the newer place that we've arrived in? Do we feel like we can start to unpack more? Right. It even makes me think of when you move homes and there's boxes that you're just like, oh, I don't have the energy to get to that yet. I mean, it's so much fuller, yes, more full than that. But there's okay, do we have the safety, the support, the stability, uh, and the sense that we can go there together? And so I wonder from your perspective, are there any things that can support that feeling in American communities in particular? Yeah.SPEAKER_01: 19:41
Well, in the psychotherapy context, I think it's really important that as therapists, we recognize that these are not simple reductionistic explanations that we can apply to understanding traumatic stress and for these, you know, particular communities. So it's and it's shifting all the time, you know. So immigration and the dynamics of immigration and acculturation are not something that is, you know, it's not like you arrive from point A to point Z. It's not a linear process, but rather the experience of the family and oneself is shifting across the lifespan. So if we again going back to that developmental perspective, that I think we have to recognize that however one feels about the trauma that they've endured, the way they feel about their families, the way they feel about their social context, the relationships that they have formed over time, all of those things are shifting across the lifespan. And sometimes it largely depends on what's happening in the social and political context. For example, right now, people who are second generation, third generation, uh, and first generation are wondering, where do I belong right now? You know, how safe am I to exist in this world? And who do I interact with? Who do I trust? And will I be reported for something? People being afraid to get a parking ticket if they park someplace. So very minor kinds of things that people who are white at this moment don't have to worry about in the same way as racial minorities. So there's a there's just a heightened understandable and justified vigilance right now. And so to understand that and the degree to which that is interfering with a person's well-being is really critical. Absolutely. The other thing, yeah, the other thing I would say is that there are also in psychotherapy, we we explore shame and guilt and very painful kinds of affects associated with trauma. And we have to wonder what may be somewhat qualitatively different for immigrants and their children. Regarding those kinds of feelings. And my former doctoral student and advisee, who's now a staff psychologist, Laura Gonzalez, she has and she has done her dissertation with Mexican-American women. And one of the things that she has focused on is the experience of shame and how powerful this emotion is and qualitatively unique to this set of participants and this set of women. So trying to get to the specifics of what does the affect feel like for this group due to their circumstances within families and broader society versus perhaps another community. That's the new emerging challenge I think we have in terms of trying to get to those experiences.Lisa Danylchuk: 22:52
I feel like so much of this, there's such a long history, and there's history that's deleted, omitted, not considered, not included to this day in primary education in the United States. And then we're in this place where more stuff continues to happen. And so I find myself thinking, how do we train therapists in the way that you're talking about, right? There's the classic like single multicultural counseling course that somebody takes. And I remember my experiences of those being quite underwhelming. But, you know, and then there's the binary thinking or the overgeneralization that you talk about. And then there's here we are today. And as a therapist stepping in with whatever background you have, how do you get the tools and stay up to speed with everything that's going on and how that's impacting the world, how that's impacting clients, how that's changing. How have you seen therapists do this well? Like stay engaged and continue to learn and unpack and grow in a way that feels generative and that feels helpful for clients that are dealing with racism and issues of immigration.SPEAKER_01: 24:11
Yeah, I think, first of all, when I've talked to many therapists who feel very demoralized themselves, you know, when we're feeling helpless and helpless perhaps ourselves at times, that it's it's it's hard to stay engaged because we're looking for some type of remedy for that for ourselves, actually, you know, and how do we deal with all of the incoming news and information that feels threatening either to ourselves or to people around us? That there's a culture of fear, culture of threat that we're all very actively engaging in. And that compounds what we're hearing in terms of more individual traumas and individual stress that our clients are experiencing. So I think one of the challenges for us is figuring out do we have a place to talk about our own stress, our own sociopolitical stress right now? And and who are we doing that with? You know, is it a peer, is it supervision, is it a consultation, whatever that might be, or our own healing methods that we have personally for ourselves. But that is really critical right now, particularly when we're in an active traumatic state. And and I would say that I do check in with my clients about how they're doing with the world at this moment, because so many of them are impacted by what's happening. And and so sometimes they would like to talk about it, and sometimes they would rather not. And yet at the same time, they know that I have an open and welcoming stance about that, that I don't see it as peripheral. And so this is very important that it's not, and I don't just do that with my clients who are racial minorities or immigrants, but I do that with everybody because everybody has some impact, you know. So there's the way in which, as you mentioned earlier, like the regarding training and often like that single multicultural training course that many of us have had, it's it's a beginning and it can be an important point of conversation, but it certainly shouldn't be as if, you know, you check that off and you're done. But rather we take it as a lifelong learning process. You know, we don't have to, and we can't possibly know everything about every single cultural group. And yet at the same time, if we take a stance of curiosity while we're also taking care of our own stress and recognizing our own stress, that we are not some perfect, you know, uh being who can be perfectly attuned to our clients in every way, but rather that we continue trying to figure that out and being honest and transparent with our clients. I think that goes a long way to helping our clients talk about what's happening in their lives that's impacting and complicating traumatic stress.Lisa Danylchuk: 27:11
Yeah. Yeah, and just continuing to learn through life and relationships and be open to who is this individual in front of me and what is their unique experience. It helps if I have some sense of context, but it's harmful if I project that context onto this person without asking, right? Or exactly.SPEAKER_01: 27:33
Exactly. Be right, it ends up being a repetition of stereotyping, right? And rather than really trying to understand how does the context feel for them, you know, given their unique circumstance and personhood.Lisa Danylchuk: 27:51
Yeah. What are some of your hopes, sociologically speaking, given where we are right now in this sociopolitical climate?SPEAKER_01: 28:04
My hope is that we continue to speak truth, that we continue to engage in in honest conversations with each other and to speak about speak truthfully about sociocultural traumas and traumatic stress more generally, as it's impacting so many people, that we not fall into line with repressing it, whether it's something broader, larger scale, or individual. So that's my hope.Lisa Danylchuk: 28:35
Yeah. We can stay open and keep unpacking the dusty boxes in the corner as we recognize they're there. Yeah. Yeah. And you've talked about psychoanalytic theory and sort of applying this uh understanding of oppression and trauma and sociocultural factors. How do you weave those two together?SPEAKER_01: 29:00
Well, some of the defense mechanisms that we're talking about, right, with dissociation, um, compartmentalization, repression, all of these things are psychoanalytically based and they're come, they come from psychoanalysis. So for me, psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic theory helps me better understand the complexity of traumatic stress, that these are deeply embedded, affectively based kinds of experiences that our our clients are dealing with and that survivors are dealing with. And psychoanalytic theory helps me understand the unconscious processes as well as the conscious level processes. It helps me understand developmentally how one shifts, and also interpersonally, how does traumatic stress impact, influence, or shape the therapeutic relationship? And who do I represent either unconsciously or consciously to that client, given my gender, given my racial background, my ethnic background, or my religious background, and any fantasies that are in play for the client. And likewise for me, what kinds of counter-transference and what emotional reactions am I having to working with this client, to what the client is saying? So psychoanalytic theory helps me attune to those processes in such a way that helps me get to a deeper understanding and I think to deeper level change in terms of healing. And so that's where the intersection comes in for me.Lisa Danylchuk: 30:44
And how do you see, I often think of therapists or even researchers in this field, we're like in these little boxes. We're in the classroom or we're in, which has other people in it, we're in a therapy office with one or a few other people, we're in a lab and publishing to journals. But how do you see folks who are in these maybe smaller physical spaces doing this really deep work? How do you see them having power in a larger sociocultural context in a even a political way in this world we're living in now?SPEAKER_01: 31:21
It's a great question, Lisa. I feel, and it's such an important thing because we don't the work we do within our own spaces is really critical, I agree, and we want to have a wider influence at the same time that's constructive. And so one of the ways that I have seen in my work in the university is through teaching and mentorship. And we're not only doing our research, which we publish in journals and may speak in academic conferences, so that we expand our understanding of theory and practice, which we hope can be implemented right by clinicians. And at the same time, we're teaching students, we're training students to think about social contextual issues as they interface with trauma. And they are going out and working with their own client communities. And some of them will go on to do community-based work, some of them will do individual work. So I think it's the passing on intergenerationally, speaking truth, as I mentioned before, and talking about facts and realities is really critical right now for the next generations and always has been. I've had mentors who've brought me to understand the social contextual lens. I've worked with Mary Harvey and Judith Herman, who have brought these understandings into my life. So I do feel a sense of responsibility to pass on to future generations. And in terms of clinical practice, I often think that, you know, when a client can begin to expand their range of possibilities as to how they see themselves and how they feel, how they might have more choices in some ways to act with freedom in their own lives, that's impacting not only the client, but their environment around them. So I think there are ways in which, even though we're operating within these smaller spaces, they can have greater impacts over time. They also, whether it's a student or client, validating the reality of trauma is liberating in and of itself sometimes. It can be very powerful and transformative.Lisa Danylchuk: 33:47
And with that, the awareness of trauma, this is where it comes back to principles of dissociation, right? With trauma, we often see the categories of hyper-arousal or urgency or urgency and emergency, or we see like a numbing, a dulling, a not knowing, a dissociation. And so I feel like folks who do this work have unique tools and understanding to be able to see when something traumatic is happening, to also see the resilience and the resources, to identify and communicate that. But then at a larger scale, I think, like you said earlier, it can be so disempowering or challenging to continue to show up and do this work, this dyadic work in particular, when there's so much happening at larger scales. So I feel like folks in this community, professionals in the trauma world, are uniquely positioned to help us through this. But it feels like I hear a lot of people like, well, where and how? Like I can, I can, when there is an immediate crisis, I can volunteer or I can connect with colleagues around the world, I can get different international perspectives, I can continue to do the work. Have you seen that connection between the work that we're doing even in universities and actual and politics and advocating in that way? Do you have any stories or examples of when that's felt effective or helpful?SPEAKER_01: 35:15
Yeah. Yeah. Years ago, this is back in 2012, I was part of a task force on immigration for the American Psychological Association, and we published a report outlining the psychology of immigration in both clinical context, but also educational contexts. And one of the things that a subgroup of us on this task force did, we went to the Hill and we met with staffers, we met with, we went to Congress to talk about the impacts of immigration on different communities, both in educational and clinical contexts. And this was all happening as the DREAM Act was being considered in Congress. So there are ways in which the APA government relations office was facilitating this process. And so there are these advocacy processes that are in place. There are some structures, and I think it's about tapping into those structures and being able to communicate what we know.Lisa Danylchuk: 36:18
Yeah.SPEAKER_01: 36:19
And being able, I think we have to be at the table in order to make those types of impacts and try to get ourselves at the table. So there are ways that that advocacy has been happening for a long time within some of our professional organizations or just out with other organizations that have nothing to do with art professions. But it could be in our local places of worship. It could be in community organizations and groups who just are having conversations about how to adapt to a new environment or to a new country. So these are places that we all can make an impact. And I found that to be an effective use of time. And we had very limited time. We had to figure out how are we going to communicate the most important salient points that relate to safety and trauma for immigrant communities and in this brief time that we have with people who have some influence over policy. So I think there are ways that we can continue to do that. I know that it can feel really overwhelming at this moment, given how much is being thrown out there at people at any given day. But but I do think it's important to continue finding whether it's in a micro level or more macro level, ways that we can share our data and our information with people.Lisa Danylchuk: 37:48
Yeah. I was part of the UN task force for the International Society for the Study of Trauma Dissociation a decade ago. It started. And I remember being in meetings and the simple question of like, have you considered the impact of trauma? Right. It was some of the most basic. And we put together some simple fact sheets. And, you know, even we had to sort of meet whatever meeting we were in where they were, and just start to open that door. So it is a really long-term process and an important time to exercise communication skills of what is this group ready to hear? What can I communicate? How can I communicate it in a way where they understand how this applies to their task at hand, which is voting on this DREAM Act or whatever is in? But it can be very fulfilling in that way to, I think, bridge, right? And send some information that I think this world is so steeped in into hands who are doing are playing different roles in the world.SPEAKER_01: 38:52
Yeah. And I think and interacting with media is a big part of this, being able to just have five minutes of, you know, some data that is relevant to the moment. And and speaking from a point of empathy is so important that that we can really draw out what, you know, what the vulnerabilities might be and why it's important to have some kind of collective responsibility to help people who are vulnerable at this moment.Lisa Danylchuk: 39:19
Yeah. Is there anything else you feel like we in the field could just be talking about more at this stage?SPEAKER_01: 39:28
I think to address our own vulnerabilities, to address the fact that clinicians are also coming from and researchers are coming from different sociocultural backgrounds themselves, that we don't all experience the world in the same way. And to recognize those unique uh experiences as well among us, and not only kind of see that within our clients or the people we're trying to help in our professions, but also within for our own development and growth and and connection really with each other.unknown: 40:03
Yeah.SPEAKER_01: 40:04
I think that will be important.Lisa Danylchuk: 40:06
Yeah, continuing to learn about each other and continuing as the field becomes more diverse, supporting the field to become more diverse. And as it does, continuing to include and highlight voices that haven't been in the past. I see that process in many organizations I'm a part of where when I joined, there was a certain demographic that was leading every conference and first author on every paper. And that's changed in the last few decades, but it still has room to grow.SPEAKER_01: 40:38
Yeah, exactly.Lisa Danylchuk: 40:40
Yeah.SPEAKER_01: 40:41
Yeah.Lisa Danylchuk: 40:42
Where would you send someone who wants to learn more about your work or just about work with immigration in the US in general?SPEAKER_01: 40:51
They can certainly go to my uh faculty page at Boston College to learn more. There are several people in the field who are focused on immigration issues. There are many people who are looking at the dynamics of immigration at this point, with both within psychoanalytic theory, but more broadly, immigration researchers who are who have been for decades really studying and the experiences of acculturation, race, and trauma.Lisa Danylchuk: 41:20
Yeah. I just had this thought. There's another panel I'm preparing for where we're talking about race, racial trauma, and should it be a diagnosis or not. So I'm curious if you have thoughts or feelings there about that that you'd like to share.SPEAKER_01: 41:34
Yeah, there are certain, there are several scholars who have been calling for racial trauma to be recognized as a form of trauma. And um Tema Bryant is one of them, Lillian Gomez Diaz, among others. And I've been a proponent of that as well. You know, that in fact, when you look at the impacts of chronic or cumulative racism on individuals and communities, you can certainly see how there are unique ways in which, you know, the trauma, uh, the stress it manifests itself, but there also overlaps with post-traumatic stress more broadly. So I have been a proponent of including that as a as racism as a precipitant to trauma. And yeah, to legitimize in the field racial trauma.Lisa Danylchuk: 42:24
Yeah. Do you have thoughts about it being included in a PTSD diagnosis versus having its own?SPEAKER_01: 42:30
I think that there's variations in what racial trauma looks like and feels like to people. It can certainly be its own particular diagnosis, but I also think it can be subsumed under PTSD because it's it the manifestations might be unique, but there can be parallels with PTSD as well. So I could see it being in both places, actually.Lisa Danylchuk: 42:52
Yeah. And what's coming up next for you? Do you have any projects, research that you're working on you'd like to share?SPEAKER_01: 43:00
At the moment, I'm working on a project where we're analyzing data for a few different studies and in my research team at Boston College. And one is one has to do with the experience of racial minority psychologists who are early in their career and how they are experiencing the current sociopolitical climate and how they're navigating it with their clients. So uh we're trying to more systematically understand the therapeutic processes that are involved at this moment, you know, as therapists navigate sociopolitical stress in particular. Nice. Um, so that's one study. I also am involved with a couple of studies that focus on the problem of colorism within for well, colorism that's faced by young black women as well as young Indian American women. So we're trying to understand the phenomenon and the impacts of colonization and slavery intergenerationally on this problem of colorism. So those are a couple of projects that I'm working on. At the moment.Lisa Danylchuk: 44:01
Nice. And you, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this yet. You're going to be presenting next year at the ISSTD conference in Boston in 2027.SPEAKER_01: 44:12
Yes. Yes, that's right. And I and in that conference I'll be speaking more in terms of exploring the complexity of traumatic stress in the immigrant context. So I will be talking about that.Lisa Danylchuk: 44:26
Yeah, wonderful. I feel as you're talking through all of this, like my head is just swimming with how rich and contextual all of this is and how important it is that we continue to think about it and talk about it and learn about it. I think for everyone, not just therapists, but like we're we're all people in the world and we're interacting with people with different experiences, even in the same racial or cultural group. And so there's so much depth and complexity that I sense from the work that you're doing. And I so appreciate your clarity and your openness to continue to explore these really rich worlds and to share it with all of us. So thank you for that.SPEAKER_01: 45:11
Thank you. Thank you, Lisa, for the opportunity to talk with you. I really appreciate it.Lisa Danylchuk: 45:17
Can I ask you one last question?SPEAKER_01: 45:19
Yes.Lisa Danylchuk: 45:20
What brings you hope or joy in life as you're doing this? Sometimes it's a really challenging work.SPEAKER_01: 45:28
Right. Many things. My my clients certainly bring me hope. Their willingness to continue learning about themselves, maybe challenging themselves sometimes, engaging in the work. This this gives me a lot of hope. Um I I I get a lot of hope from my students and my colleagues as well, that they are doing work despite how hopeless sometimes they feel or demoralized they feel. And they continue to raise important questions that are relevant to all of society, you know, that whether we're talking about race or gender, immigration, sexuality, you know, um, trauma, so all and social class, all of this that is so relevant and um and critical to keep understanding and exploring. So all of this work and engagement gives me a lot of hope.Lisa Danylchuk: 46:25
Nice. Yeah. Thank you so much for your work and for sharing it with us here today.SPEAKER_01: 46:30
Thank you.Lisa Danylchuk: 46:36
You made it to the end of the episode. Thanks for listening all the way through. Now that you've been listening for a while, I'd love to hear back from you. What's an idea or a story from this episode that sticks with you as we wrap up? Or what's one small thing you can do today to choose a step in the direction of healing or hurt? Share your answers and what's been healing for you in the comments below on YouTube, on Instagram at how we can heal, or send me a message at info at howwecanheal.com. Also check out howwecanheal.com for free resources, trainings, and the full transcript of each show. If you're listening and loving the show, please leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, Audible, or wherever you're listening right now. If you're watching on YouTube, click the buttons to like and subscribe, and keep sharing the show with anyone it could benefit. Before we wrap today, I want to be clear that this podcast isn't offering prescriptions, it's not advice, nor is it any kind of mental health treatment or diagnosis. Your decisions are in your hands, and I encourage you to consult with any healthcare professionals you may need to support you through your unique path of healing. In addition, everyone's opinion here is their own, and opinions can change. Guests share their thoughts, not that of the host or sponsors. I'd like to thank our guests today again and everyone who helped support this podcast directly and indirectly. Alex, thanks for taking care of the babe and the fur babes while I record. Last and never least, I'd like to send some love to my big brother Matt, who passed away in 2002. He wrote this music and it makes my heart so very happy to share it with you here. Till next time.
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