Treating the trauma of racial systemic oppression: A scoping review and thematic analysis

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dc.contributor.authorEmery, Megan
dc.contributor.supervisorRamsundarsingh, Susan
dc.contributor.supervisorCarroll, Simon
dc.date.accessioned2025-12-18T23:52:35Z
dc.date.available2025-12-18T23:52:35Z
dc.date.issued2025
dc.degree.departmentSchool of Public Health and Social Policy
dc.degree.levelMaster of Science MSc
dc.description.abstractThis research study sought to answer the question: How does the recent literature examine treating the chronic trauma of racial systemic oppression within the individual therapy hour? A scoping review and thematic analysis of 34 articles was conducted, per the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) and PRISMA-SR protocols. The analysis found that there are three categories of philosophy in the selected literature: Western, Adapted Western, and Decolonized. These categories agree that racial systemic oppression is psychologically traumatic, that it must be addressed via anti-racist approaches, and that the therapist must have done significant reflexive work to unlearn racist beliefs that are inherent in society. The three categories differ in how they go about implementing anti-racist approaches. Western and Adapted Western approaches are rooted in evidence-based Western therapy practices and add varying degrees of anti-racist or culturally adapted elements to this base. The Decolonized approach completely decenters the Western perspective and replaces it with the healing traditions of the culture of the person seeking help. All the articles agreed that while these concepts are theoretically sound, they lack research to determine their effectiveness. More research needs to be done, specifically via a decolonizing research methodology, to avoid continuing the cycle of Western systemic oppression.
dc.description.scholarlevelGraduate
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/23000
dc.languageEnglisheng
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Web
dc.subjectpyschological trauma
dc.subjectchronic trauma
dc.subjectracial trauma
dc.subjectracism
dc.subjectracial systemic oppression
dc.subjectinstitutional oppression
dc.subjectdecolonized therapy
dc.subjectanti-racist therapy
dc.subjectnon-western
dc.subjectculturally adapted therapy
dc.subjectpsychotherapy
dc.subjecttherapy
dc.subjectsocial work
dc.subjectcounseling
dc.titleTreating the trauma of racial systemic oppression: A scoping review and thematic analysis
dc.typeThesis

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