therapy for race-based trauma in los angeles
race-based trauma
What is race-based trauma?
Racial trauma, also known as race-based traumatic stress, is mental and emotional injury due to racism and discrimination. The Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) community are affected by this as we fight through white supremacy.
Traumatic incidents can be direct racism to an individual, vicarious trauma through witnessing violence towards the BIPOC community, and generational trauma, which is the trauma we carry from our ancestors.
How can I cope with trauma?
The tricky part with trauma is that it doesn’t only undermine our mental health. Unless processed, that same trauma can live in our bodies. It can leave people feeling alone and untrusting of others. It can cause people to be in a constant state of panic or anxiety, wondering when the next bad thing will happen. Holding on to unprocessed racial trauma can be breeding grounds for exhaustion, low-self esteem, and clinical depression.
In therapy. you can learn to address the emotional and mental aches you carry. I can help unpack the history of struggles so that you can start to make meaning of it. Therapy can guide you to take better care of yourself in the midst of all the chaos that communities of color experience. In therapy with me, you no longer have to bear this on your own.
I can teach you skills to help manage the stress of racial discrimination in our country. I can help you heal the damages that society and other people committed.
I want to support this journey. Together, we can uncover the root of your struggles and make sense of your experiences. Together, I can help you get to the best version of yourself.
me and my approach
How do I identify? I am a lot of things! I am a psychotherapist, a student, a dog mother, a bargain shopper, and many others. In all those roles? I primarily see myself in the context of race, being a black woman in America.
I walk into a lot of spaces and I am quick to identify how much representation is there for me. On one hand, I notice people who look like me, and on the other, I look for others who would understand my lived experience in Asia. Both are not always present, but I know I feel at home when either of my racial identities is present. I could imagine the same for you. It can be very difficult to exist in spaces where you feel like you are not understood, or that your life events are not taken into consideration.
There are both unique and shared occurrences in communities of people of color. Some of those we may celebrate, some of those may just be difficult to hold. In therapy with me, I can be your nurturing companion and guide as you take this journey of understanding your identity. I believe in being honest and authentic in the therapy room with you. I start with working on some generational trauma, which means the trauma that generations before you have been through, and understand how that impacts you as a person today. I can help you make sense of how the collection of your experiences affect the way you see and encounter the world around you.
