Radical Healing Research Articles

Radical healing in psychotherapy: Addressing the wounds of racism-related stress and trauma.

There is a large body of research on the importance of addressing culture in psychotherapy. However, less is known about providing critically conscious and racially affirmative therapy for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) clients in the context of ongoing systemic racism and racism-related stress and trauma, especially in the sociopolitical context of the United States. This article introduces and illustrates the Keeping Radical Healing in Mind Therapeutic Approach using a sample therapy session. To contextualize the therapeutic approach, we outline the need for antiracist and liberatory approaches to psychotherapy and describe in detail the Psychology of Radical Healing theoretical framework. The clinical stance that underpins the Keeping Radical Healing in Mind Therapeutic Approach includes helping clients develop, internalize, and nurture (a) Critical Consciousness, (b) Cultural Authenticity and Self-Knowledge, (c) Radical Hope and Envisioning Possibilities, (d) Collectivism, and (e) Strength and Resistance. To better meet the needs of BIPOC clients, the stance requires clinicians to develop their critical consciousness of systemic racism and interlocking forms of oppression. The clinical case of "Brenda," a Black woman experiencing the effects of racism-related stress while raising a young Black boy, is presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Radical Healing in Precarity: LGBTQ+ Young People’s Approaches to Life Challenges and Aspirations through Pet Caregiving in the Context of Homelessness

Homelessness remains an enduring challenge for people from all backgrounds, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ+) young people disproportionately experience housing instability. Navigating structural oppressions tied to both their identities as well as economic inequalities can shape multiple mental health stressors for LGBTQ+ young adults. Despite these struggles, LGBTQ+ young people continue to persevere and hope, and their aspirations often prioritize processes of recovery. Healing pathways may involve forging bonds with pets or companion animals, which can be precarious in the context of homelessness. Through a radical healing framework, we qualitatively uplift the perspectives of 17 LGBTQ+ young adults (18–24) to illustrate how they may develop their wellbeing through pet caregiving and aspiration building while homeless. Participants highlighted the structural constraints of homelessness creating barriers to aspirations such as pet caregiving, but also how pets promoted their emotional wellbeing and motivation to hold onto their dreams. Findings point to avenues of service and intervention development that center LGBTQ+ young people’s hopes and dreams in homelessness beyond a sole focus on basic needs.

Toward a Methodology of Healing: Promoting Radical Healing among Student Survivors through Research

To resist hegemonic campus sexual violence research trends rooted in postpositivist paradigms, I advocate for the centering of healing in research, particularly in the research methodologies that scholars employ. In this article, I invite researchers to (re)consider the purpose of research as a process that actively prioritizes and promotes radical healing among student participants. By envisioning culture as an asset for healing, centering relationality and community, and embodying trauma-informed practices, researchers can employ methodologies that support radical healing among minoritized survivor participants. I describe my conceptualization of a methodology rooted in healing, integrating discussion of my positionality and professional pursuits that have informed my definitions of healing and understandings of the possibilities of a healing methodology. I then share some examples of potential methods that align with a healing methodology, such as thé talks, virtual semi-structured interviews, and photo-elicitation. Through attention to the physical environment and interpersonal context, engaging in contemplative practices, promoting principles of trauma-informed care, and centering relationality, embodying a methodology of healing can foster healing among participants through the very act of engaging in specific methods and the research process. I demonstrate the potential transformative nature of these methods by sharing participant narratives from two critical qualitative studies centering Women and Femme Student Survivors of Color in which I employed these methods. I conclude by illustrating the significance of a healing methodology—its ability to invite higher education scholars to question the very purpose of research and shift to center participant communities as the primary audience of scholarship, ultimately fostering radical healing. By employing a healing methodology, scholars can promote equity and justice for individual participants while working toward broader social change.

Intergenerational Communication about Historical Trauma in Asian American Families.

Little is known about how Asian American families, as well as other racially marginalized families, communicate about ethnic and racial group histories, particularly regarding historical trauma. Unlike personal trauma, historical trauma refers to distressing or life-threatening events which members of a group with a shared social identity experience together and pass on to their descendants. It has been studied in a variety of groups and contexts, notably in Holocaust survivors and their families and in Native American communities. The concept has seen limited application to Asian American groups, despite its relevance to their unique and shared lived experiences. For instance, the majority of Asian Americans have immigrated from countries across Asia that have been profoundly affected by war and political upheaval in the past century. Research on historical trauma among Asian Americans has focused primarily on refugees who fled the US wars in Southeast Asia, with some research on Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II. Historical trauma related to other major events, such as the India/Pakistan Partition, the Chinese Civil War and Cultural Revolution, the Korean War, and the Sri Lankan Civil War, have not been examined among Asian Americans. A lack of recognition of these historical traumas within families and communities, as well as in the psychological literature, may mask important pre-migration history effects on Asian American families across generations. In this paper, we consider how historical trauma impacts Asian American individuals, families, and communities. We also examine the role of intergenerational communication in historical trauma and in Asian American families and communities. Finally, we discuss historical trauma among Asian Americans within the framework of radical healing, particularly how intergenerational communication about historical trauma can raise critical consciousness, facilitate ethnic-racial identity development, and reinforce ethnic-racial socialization.

Integrating Intersectionality, Social Determinants of Health, and Healing: A New Training Framework for School-Based Mental Health

Social justice-centered training has progressed in school psychology, yet training and practice still do not adequately address systems-level influences on mental health, let alone focus on dismantling the systemic inequities that adversely affect the wellbeing of marginalized children and youth. An equity- and intersectional justice-minded framework for training future school psychologists in school-based mental health is presented, informed by the theories of intersectionality, critical race theory, social determinants of health, and radical healing. The proposed framework is based on reflective practice and incorporates three pillars that emphasize the importance of decentralizing psychodiagnostic assessment, centralizing systems-level work, and renewing focus on strengths and healing. To advance training that critically evaluates social factors that affect child wellbeing while honoring children’s identities and strengths, various ways in which graduate programs can enact this paradigm shift are discussed. Future directions for the field, including research and policy, are also presented. Impact Statement This article offers a framework to train school psychologists on how to intervene at the systems and societal levels to promote equity in child mental health. The first pillar emphasizes the need to decentralize psychodiagnostic assessment in school psychology practice—in order to move away from predominantly reactive, deficit-focused assessment activities that perpetuate inequities and to carve out more time for prevention of mental health difficulties and promotion of wellness. The second pillar centralizes systems-level work, particularly through additional training in MTSS, systems-level consultation to build capacity and develop novel initiatives to address social determinants of mental health, and advocacy and policy work. The third pillar involves training with a renewed focus on strengths, as helping marginalized children resist and heal from oppression requires reversing entrenched tendencies to pathologize, and building on individual, familial, and cultural strengths to foster wellbeing.

The public psychology for liberation training model: A call to transform the discipline.

Written against the backdrop of the 2020 twin pandemics of a global health crisis and greater national awareness of structural racism, this article issues a call for psychology to invest in training all psychologists to respond to the social ills of racial and other forms of oppression. We introduce a public psychology for liberation (PPL) training model. Essentially, the model reflects a science, a pedagogical commitment, and practice of, by, and with the people who have been most marginalized in society. The PPL consists of five foundational domains or cross-cutting areas of expertise (e.g., facilitate human relationships; generate reciprocal knowledge and translation) and 10 interrelated lifelong practices (e.g., cultural humility; care and compassion) that foster healing and equity. The model centers the perspectives of the Global Majority, focuses on radical healing and equity, and emphasizes a developmental, culturally grounded, strengths-based approach to training. Various training initiatives consistent with a public psychology for liberation approach are presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Collective Healing: A Framework for Building Transformative Collaborations in Public Health.

The capacity of cross-sector collaboration to create meaningful change across social-ecological levels has long been understood in public health. But the ability of cross-sector collaboration to achieve systemic change around the structural determinants of health remains complicated. In 2021, now more than ever, we understand the imperative of strengthening the capacity of collaborative efforts to address the myriad structural health crises facing our communities, from police violence and mass incarceration to Jim Crow laws and redlining, to urban renewal and environmental injustice. Our proposed collective healing framework brings together the collective impact model and radical healing framework to offer a blueprint for cross-sector collaboration that understands the practices of healing to be at the center of public health collaborations and public health practice at large. In this framework, public health practitioners and our collaborators are asked to prioritize relationship building, engage in critical self-reflection, to move beyond compromise, to address differences, to interrogate traditional metrics and approaches, to remake the collective table, and to build shared understanding through action.

Toward radical healing: A qualitative metasynthesis exploring oppression and liberation among Black queer people.

Toward radical healing: A qualitative metasynthesis exploring oppression and liberation among Black queer people.

Teaching and Learning During A Pandemic: How one Graduate Community Psychology Class Quickly Incorporated Healing Justice Into Our Practices.

In this first‐person account, we describe the changes we made to align our graduate student‐level community psychology class with a healing justice model. We undertook this intervention because the class started in March, at the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic stay‐at‐home directive in our region. We describe the facets of a healing justice model, which promotes radical healing and collective action in a trauma‐informed environment. We then discuss the changes we made to the class to better align with healing justice, including how enrolled students (i.e., co‐authors) experienced the process of the course (e.g., reworking the syllabus, starting class with check‐ins and an exercise to engage our parasympathetic nervous systems), as well as the content of the course (e.g., service projects to support people who are undocumented, unhoused, or minoritized in other ways; photovoice). We end with implications for teaching community psychology, including the importance of universal design, and for scholar‐activist PhD programs.

Radical removal of advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx

Surgery for advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx are among the most difficult. This is due to the topographical and anatomical features that limit the operating field and the proximity of the internal carotid artery, which penetrates into the skull without branches. Her injury and bandaging are fraught with lethality. In the postoperative period, due to a violation of the function of swallowing, there is a stagnation of oral fluid in the oral cavity, which pro[1]motes healing by secondary tension. The functions of the oropharynx are impaired: swallowing, chewing, breathing and speech.Purpose of the study. To develop an operation in patients with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx, allowing to visualize the area of the tumor with it’s radical removal and postoperative healing without suppuration.Patients and methods. We’ve operated a patient with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx with me[1]tastases to the cervical lymph nodes (T4 N1 M0 – IV st.). Cervical lymphodessection and removal of the tumor from the oral cavity and oropharynx was performed according to the method developed at the National Medical Research Centre for Oncology of the Ministry of Health of Russia: the tumor was removed after a preliminary modified mandib-ulotomy. Good visualization allowed for a radical operation, after which a urostoma was formed, which promotes the free flow of oral fluid from the oral cavity, without its stagnation and without suppuration of the tissues. The jaw was restored with two titanium mini-plates.Results. The healing was carried out by primary tension. On the 7th day after the operation, breathing was restored[1]decanulated. On day 20, epithelialization of the wound surface of the oral cavity and oropharynx occurred. The nasoesophageal probe was removed. Plastic orostoma was produced. By this time, the functions of the oropharyngeal region were partially restored: chewing, swallowing, and speech. Discharged home. Remission for more than 2 years.Conclusions. Previously performed modifi ed mandibulotomy in patients with advanced cancer of the oral cavity and oropharynx, allows you to expand the view of the operating field and provide a radical operation. The formed orostoma, preventing suppuration in the oral cavity, accelerates healing with the restoration of functions: chewing, swallowing, breathing and speech.

Black Aesthetic/s as divine lover of No End In Sight

This artistic response centers Black aesthetical alchemy as a source of radical healing and liberation. Recognizing the brutal strain of a white supremacist caste system, the author situates resilience as a r/evolutionary spiritual trait and innate cultural praxis. Black life and wholeness is explored through intimate acts of place-making, reclamation, and creation.

Ensuring the psychedelic renaissance and radical healing reach the Black community: Commentary on Culture and Psychedelic Psychotherapy

AbstractSimilar to much of the mental health field, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has failed to center the needs of people of color. Monnica Williams and colleagues demonstrate the harm faced by Black women and other people of color when working with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapists that are unaware of and ill-equipped to address sensitive topics related to race. Here I discuss the benefits and limitations of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy training for therapists that have not engaged in deep and reflective processes to understand their personal engagement in racism, privilege, and oppression. I call on leaders in the field of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to adhere to a new standard of intersectional cultural humility for anyone preparing to provide these services. Finally, I highlight the need to significantly increase the number of therapists of color trained to offer psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy to begin to address racial disparities to access to these radical treatments for trauma.

TO CASUISTICS OF TOTAL REMOVAL OF THE UTERUS THROUGH VAGINA

One of the most interesting and important questions of operative gynecology was and is the question of surgical methods of treatment of uterine cancer. The task and purpose of each operative removal of a malignant neoplasm should be expressed, on the one hand, in its technical simplicity, and, on the other, in achieving the desired and final result, i.e., in the radical healing of the body, since the operation is undertaken under conditions with a predicted quo ad valetudinem, and not quo ad vitam. A whole galaxy of scientists, converging more or less in this complex and main goal of surgical intervention for uterine cancer, begins to break up into groups, as soon as it comes to the nature and extent of the spread of neoplasm in connection with the operative method, with indications and contraindications to it. These disagreements, depending both on the difficulty of determining in each given case microscopically the extent of cancer prevalence, and on the complexity of some of the problems, are the reason that the main surgical methods, such as: Amputatio infravaginalis colli uteri, supravaginalis, colpohysteroectomoectomia and laparohyster serve as controversial points in gynecology.

Remembering and honoring the dead: Dia de los Muertos, Black Lives Matter and radical healing

ABSTRACT The officer who murdered George Floyd by pressing his knee on his neck symbolizes the chokehold systemic racism and antiblackness has had on Black people. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has provided a critical space where marginalized people of color can find their voice by engaging in social activism as well as a space where they can process and reflect on the larger issues that are affecting them in society. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to discuss how through a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) project that addressed extrajudicial killings by creating a Día de los Muertos float led to youth finding critical hope, which lent itself to radical healing.

Practicing youth participatory action research for school equity: A pedagogical model

The application of emancipatory pedagogical methods such as youth participatory action research may serve as a valuable practice for addressing educational inequity. This article presents educational leaders, teachers, researchers, and youth advocates with a description of applicable pedagogical methods that comprised the implementation of a youth participatory action research seminar at the middle school level. The authors describe a seminar that incorporated tenets of critical pedagogy and radical healing to maximize student engagement and enhance the impact of student voice in a project to expand school equity. Also provided is a course outline highlighting topics covered and activities implemented throughout the 12-week seminar. Important considerations and lessons learned are also discussed.

Radical hope in revolting times: Proposing a culturally relevant psychological framework

AbstractGrowing research supports the link between individual expressions of hope and psychological well‐being. In this paper, we draw on psychological theories of hope, racial and ethnic studies, and the literature on radical healing to propose a framework of radical hope. Although the proposed multidimensional framework integrates cultural practices of People of Color in the United States, it is flexible enough to be adapted to other contexts. The paper begins by providing a brief review of the literature that conceptualizes the concept of hope in the field of psychology as a prelude to comparing the concept to the interdisciplinary notion of radical hope. Based on this body of work, we then introduce a culturally relevant psychological framework of radical hope, which includes the components of collective memory as well as faith and agency. Both components require an orientation to one of four directions including individual orientation, collective orientation, past orientation, and future orientation. The framework also consists of pathways individuals can follow to experience radical hope including (a) understanding the history of oppression along with the actions of resistance taken to transform these conditions, (b) embracing ancestral pride, (c) envisioning equitable possibilities, and (d) creating meaning and purpose in life by adopting an orientation to social justice. We conclude with a proposed research agenda for radical hope.

Counseling Psychology and the Amelioration of Oppression: Translating Our Knowledge Into Action

In the new millennium, counseling psychologists have answered the call to address oppression related to intersectional identities. We have played a major role in the development of practice guidelines and policies, as well as in the application of ethical principles in cultural contexts. The Counseling Psychologist has served to disseminate information addressing needs and interventions for diverse communities. In this article, we review the history and impact of our efforts to ameliorate oppression. The pressing challenges of economic and educational disparities are highlighted along with how counseling psychologists are uniquely situated to meet the needs of the underserved. Our research, training, and practice are anchored in methodological pluralism, global helping paradigms, participatory engagement, and the promotion of liberation and radical healing. We offer recommendations to deconstruct current models and reconstruct a decolonized approach, embrace interdisciplinary collaboration to fight cultural encapsulation, strengthen prevention and advocacy, train a culturally diverse workforce, and prioritize intersectional research.

Power threats and radical healing in Black youths’ leisure

Using racial threat theory, the present commentary argues that Black youth have been historically and are presently treated as a threat in leisure settings. The acknowledgment that leisure settings have perpetuated injustice for Black youth creates space for dialog about opportunities to promote justice. The second half of this article thus argues that the margins—as a space relatively free of oppression—may be an effective site for Black youth to imagine alternatives to their status as a threat. Radical healing, a process of building the capacity of Black youth to resist oppression, is described as a strategy to facilitate that imagination. Research questions and designs are recommended for future radical healing scholarship. The commentary closes with a call for further examination of the ways that leisure simultaneously furthers oppression and offers opportunities for resistance.

Toward a Psychological Framework of Radical Healing in Communities of Color

Advancing beyond individual-level approaches to coping with racial trauma, we introduce a new psychological framework of radical healing for People of Color and Indigenous individuals (POCI) in the United States. We begin by providing a context of race and racism in the United States and its consequences for the overall well-being of POCI. We build on existing frameworks rooted in social justice education and activism and describe a form of healing and transformation that integrates elements of liberation psychology, Black psychology, ethnopolitical psychology, and intersectionality theory. We briefly review these conceptual foundations as a prelude to introducing a psychological framework of radical healing and its components grounded in five anchors including: (a) collectivism, (b) critical consciousness, (c) radical hope, (d) strength and resistance, and (e) cultural authenticity and self-knowledge. We conclude with a discussion of the applications of radical healing to clinical practice, research, training, and social justice advocacy.

The Value of Ethnic History Studies to Cultural Competence in Organized Youth Recreation

Several scholars have argued that cultural competence is an important component of youth recreation service. Although history is a critical element of culture, knowledge of ethnic history has received little attention within discussions of culturally competent youth recreation service. Ethnic history studies—histories that emphasize the experience of minoritized populations—can both fill this gap and build awareness of the complexity and nuance of cultures. Radical healing is described as a framework to think about potential applications of ethnic history to organized youth recreation. Radical healing seeks to build the capacity of young people to create the communities in which they want to live. We recommend that practitioners develop activities that both connect youths’ present with their past and balance wounds with strengths. Such activities further youths’ understanding of their present while creating opportunities for community engagement. Even though ethnic history knowledge does not reveal the true nature of youth, it may allow practitioners to see minoritized youth in a more holistic manner; to see that past events have created limitations and possibilities for who young people are and who they might become.Subscribe to JPRA