Cultural and Historical Traumas: Invisible Barriers to Healing and Change – Anita Mandley

Cultural and historical trauma appears and is influenced in your work more than you think, especially if you work with people of color, war survivors, refugees and their descendants. Additionally, if your clients differ from you in the areas of race, culture, religion, sexuality, class or gender, your own biases are likely to come out in session.

Watch Anita Mandley as she brings these issues out of the shadows and into consciousness, and opens a new path toward addressing the hidden grief of cultural and historical wounds. Not only will she show you how to help your client’s historical trauma, but she will help you become a culturally more mindful and competent therapist to effectively help your clients heal their trauma.

1. Explore the clinical implications of clients with historical trauma to inform the clinician’s choice of treatment interventions.
2. Articulate clinical interventions that acknowledge and process grief and loss connected to the client’s historical trauma.

Awareness, Acknowledgement and Assessment

• Acknowledgement and Awareness of The Intergenerational Impact and Memory Traces of Cultural and
• Historical Traumas on Clients and The Therapist’s Own Self
• Relevant Areas for Assessment
• Structured Model of Assessment
• Case Examples of The Clinical Implications of Traumatic Experiences in The Present

Moving from Reflexive Reactivity to Connection, Fluidity and Coherence in The Here and Now

• Difference Between Bias, Prejudice and the “Isms”
• The Process to Regulate the Neurobiology of Bias
• The Benefit and Power of Providing the Resources of Witness, Protector and Comforter to Heal Intergenerational Wounds

How to Uncover the Survival Narrative, Validate the Trauma, And Move to A Strengths-Based Process of Empowerment and Healing

• Studying, Listening to And Validating the Client’s Traumatic Cultural Narrative, While Listening for The Resources That Helped Them Survive
• Using the Client’s Own Survival Resources, As Well As Cultural-Specific Rituals and/or Creating New Rituals for Acknowledging and Processing the Loss and Grief Connected to Historical Traumas
• New Ways to Establish Boundaries and Self-Defense and Self-Protection