Purpose: Describe the Suquamish cultural influences on defining living a life worthwhile and to describe the compatibility of a culturally modified Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) with a Native American community's culture and context. Background: Native Americans experience serious psychological distress, suicide, and substance abuse at higher rates than other racial groups. Studies using DBT found a significant decrease in parasuicidal risk behavior and substance abuse. However, research has not demonstrated that DBT is efficacious or compatible within the Native American culture. Specific Aims: 1) Describe the Native American cultural influences on defining living a life worthwhile. 2) Describe the compatibility between Healthy and Whole, a culturally modified DBT intervention with Native American culture. Methodology: Critical ethnographic study with in-depth interviews (13) and participant observations (10 months) was conducted. Sample was tribal members and clinicians exposed to the Healthy and Whole and tribal members who are identified as knowledgeable regarding tribal tradition. Analyses included semantic domain, taxonomic, and theme analysis for aim1 and compared DBT curriculum to results of aim 1 to accomplish aim 2.Findings: An intergenerational cycle of relational trauma was initiated by structural cultural genocide with systematic abuse and neglect of Native Americans especially children. Relational trauma of abuse and neglect is the source of a variety of maladaptive behaviors. These maladaptive behaviors lead to relational trauma in the next generation. A dual process of maintaining and revitalizing Suquamish cultural values coupled with skills taught in a culturally modified DBT intervention, Healthy and Whole, help Suquamish members live more worthwhile lives and recover from intrapersonal trauma. Implications: Healthy and Whole is a community approach to healing from relational trauma. Healthy and Whole approach to DBT may help other indigenous people live more worthwhile lives and recover from relational trauma and break the cycle because Suquamish cultural values are collectivist and many indigenous peoples share similar values and histories of historical trauma.

abstract: The Yavapai-Apache Nation represents one American Indian tribe whose experiences of historical trauma and alternative responses to historical trauma is not fully understood. This study sought to explore the presence of historical trauma among individuals who did not directly experience events of historical trauma, and ways those individuals have dealt with the possible impact of historical trauma. The foundation of this research reflected that pathological outcomes may not be universal responses to historical trauma for a sample of Yavapai-Apache Nation college graduates, as evidenced by their academic success, positive life outcomes, and resilience. The study utilized Indigenous methodologies and conversational and semi-structured interviews with Yavapai-Apache Nation co-researchers and four central themes emerged. The first theme of Family indicated the Yavapai-Apache Nation co-researchers with a strong orientation toward the family. Families provided support and this positive perception of family support provided the encouragement needed to cope with various experiences in their lives, including school, raising their own families, career goals and helping to impart teachings to their own children or youth within the community. The second theme, Identity, indicated the co-researchers experienced the effects of historical trauma through the loss of language, culture and identity and that while losses were ongoing, they acknowledged the necessity of identity re-vitalization. The third theme, Survival, indicated that despite hardships, the co-researchers acknowledge survival as a collective effort and achieved by an individual’s efforts within the group. The co-researchers described their personal understanding of education and success. They also discussed how they contribute to the survival of the Yavapai-Apache Nation. The fourth theme, Intersection, indicated the co-researchers’ stories and experiences in which the themes of family, identity and survival intersected with one another. It was necessary to include this final theme to show respect for the co-researchers’ stories and experiences. Also discussed are the study’s strengths, limitations, and the implications for research with the Yavapai-Apache Nation and research with Indigenous Communities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Work 2018

Native Americans have high rates of teen births and intimate partner violence, though little is known about how historical trauma impacts these experiences. The research that has been conducted on teen pregnancy and violence has been among reservation-based Native Americans; little research has been conducted on the experiences of urban Native Americans. The research question for this study examined the potential impact of historical trauma on the lives of parenting urban Native Americans. This phenomenological study gathered the narrative lived experiences of participants via semistructured interviews. Purposeful random sampling was used to recruit 7 parenting urban Native American teens aged 18 to 25 residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Interview responses were transcribed and entered into NVivo11-© to support the analysis. Nine themes were identified: chaos; trauma; violence; family, with the subcategory of negative family experiences; responsibility; altered life plans; historical trauma as defined by past events; traditions; and sense of belonging. It was not explicit how historical trauma as defined in the literature had impacted the lives of urban Native Americans and how they raised their children. However, the participants experienced violence and trauma, which impacted outcomes in their lives. The social implications of this study are that it supports the development of culturally sensitive interventions targeted towards urban Native Americans. The findings of this study identified gaps in services for urban Native Americans that community groups and other agencies can use to develop or expand targeted support services focused on urban Native American needs.

This project examines how fiction writers of the U.S. South and South Africa have grappled with the negotiation of the after-effects of national and individual trauma and how their texts implicate the reader in the suffering being represented. Chapter I seeks to make a connection between the theories of Freud, Cathy Caruth, and Dominick LaCapra as they relate to narrative representation of trauma and the position of the reader. Chapter II discusses Robert Penn Warren’s Flood through the lens of melancholia and trauma theory, showing how Warren depicts the elusive force of historical trauma through a protagonist charged with narrativizing an experience that resists articulation. Chapter III examines the notion of madness and the inward turning of suffering as discussed in scholarship on Head’s A Question of Power, arguing that through a punctum-like element, Head shows the transmission of intergenerational trauma in spite of an inward turning of suffering.

A large body of research has examined the intergenerational consequences of historically traumatic events with populations whose ancestors have collectively faced significant experiences of loss and trauma due to colonization, genocide, and other forms of oppression and marginalization. This type of research is especially prevalent among indigenous populations and historical trauma has been used to theoretically explain some groups overrepresentation in negative societal and health indices. Yet there has been virtually no empirical study of the effects of historical trauma using a Polynesian sample. The aim of this dissertation was to examine the association historically traumatic losses may have with the mental health status of Polynesians. This dissertation also explored how ethnic immersion may moderate or buffer the association between historical losses and Polynesian mental health status. In this study structural equation modeling was used to examine how historical traumas and ethnic immersion associate with Polynesians' mental health. Results of the analysis found that reminders of historical losses were predictive of emotional distress and poorer mental health outcomes, while ethnic immersion was found to be predictive of more positive mental health status. In this study's analysis no moderating effects were identified. The clinical implications from the findings of this study are discussed to help clinicians identify strategies that may help Polynesians heal from the residual effects of historical trauma.

This dissertation intends to study the haunting power of the past¡Xthe legacy of slavery and the trauma of racism¡Xon the lives of African Americans in Toni Morrison fiction. In this dissertation, I attempt to examine how the aftermaths of historical and individual trauma affect the formation of ethnic identity and black subjectivity, how the traumatic history is haunting across generations, how the memory of the traumatic past is mediated and imaginatively portrayed through fictional characters and in what ways those characters respond to racism and imposed shame. Based on the theories of trauma, I view African American history as a prolonged history of trauma which haunts generations of blacks. The impact of the past is always present in a variety of ways. Among Morrison¡¦s fiction, I will only choose four of her novels as my major concern to elaborate the fundamental issues that Morrison consistently highlights. The first chapter attempts to investigate aesthetics, ethics and black female subjectivity in Morrison¡¦s The Bluest Eye and Beloved. In the novels, Morrison discloses the racist biases of white aesthetics, as well as its damaging impacts on reshaping the subjectivity of black women. For Morrison, the aesthetic judgment is inseparable from ethics. The second chapter tackles the problematic of racial haunting and the possibilities of working through historical trauma in Beloved. The writing of Beloved not only serves as a reminder as well as a symptom of historical trauma but also offers a way to heal collectively historical trauma. The third chapter is concerned with the issue of postmemory and the crisis of fatherhood in Song of Solomon. The main protagonist, Milkman, still has to work through the multi-ethnic past of his family which, though not directly his, yet haunts him nonetheless. Morrison emphasizes the need for African Americans to forge productive links between past and present. Unless Milkman confronts his past, both personal and collective, he will not know how to appreciate the beauty and power of African-American cultural heritage. The fourth chapter engages with the problematic of black manhood and black nationalism in Paradise. In this chapter, I endeavor to explore how the wounded black manhood is formed in response and in reaction to the historical oppressions of black men as a whole. Set in the sixties and seventies of America, Paradise is a critique to the biased gender politics of black nationalism at that time. It reveals Morrison¡¦s persistent concern with the plight of black men and the continuous victimization of black women.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This research focuses on the displacement of families in the Western Cape during apartheid within the context of its slave past.The transmission of intergenerational trauma has been based on research on holocaust survivors. Aboriginal academic writers in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US found that initial studies of intergenerational trauma did not take into the account the historical trauma of colonialism which they believe has left its mark on aboriginal communities today. In South Africa writers from the Apartheid Archives Project have started to focus on the intergenerational trauma of apartheid. These are mainly academics from psychology and not social work. The Apartheid Archives Project and social work discourse do not focus on the historical trauma of slavery. Historians believe that slavery has still left a mark on its descendants in the Western Cape. The families in this research are descendants of slaves and they were also displaced as a result of the Group Areas Act during apartheid. Qualitative research using a postcolonial indigenous paradigm was adopted in this study. Life histories, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were the primary sources of data collection. The research design was a multiple case study which consisted of 7 families where each family was a case and 3 generations in each family were interviewed. The families had typical slave surnames and at least one generation was displaced as a result of the forced removals when the Group Areas Act (1950-1985) was implemented during apartheid. Thematic analysis, narrative thematic analysis and case study analysis was adopted .In addition narrative therapy theory and collective narrative practice was used to decolonise the conceptual framework and methodology. The trauma of displacement and historical trauma of slavery was not acknowledged as traumatic by the dominant society because South African society was based on institutional racism. The grief and loss of the trauma therefore became unresolved and disenfranchised. The findings indicate that disenfranchised grief, silence, socialisation in institutional racism and shame have been the main mechanisms in which the historical trauma of slavery and trauma of displacement has been transmitted within the families. The effects such as intimate partner violence and substance abuse and community violence in the form of gang violence are forms of internalised oppression which has also been transmitted intergenerationally. In addition overcrowding, poor housing and poverty has been transmitted via socialisation which is a societal mechanism of trauma transmission. vi The research findings indicate that the trauma of displacement and historical trauma of slavery was transmitted because the trauma was not included in the social discourse of society. In order to prevent the transmission of the historical trauma of slavery and displacement, the real effects of institutional , cultural and interpersonal racism need to be understood and the counter-memories and counter-histories of slaves and their descendants need to be included in social discourse. A framework to assist social workers in engaging with trauma transmission in families has been proposed in order to interrupt the trauma transmission in families.

The Indian residential school (IRS) system is part of Canada’s colonial history; an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children attended IRS (Stout & Peters, 2011). Informed by Indigenous principles of respect, relevance, responsibility, reciprocity, and relationality (Deloria, 2004; Ermine 1995; Kirkness & Barnhardt, 2001; Wilson, 2008), this study uses classic grounded theory to explore how female IRS survivors or their female descendants are coping with the intergenerational transmission of trauma. Specifically, the general method of comparative analysis was used to generate theory and identify categories and conceptualizations. The emergent problem found that individual survivors and their descendants were dealing with kakwatakih-nipowatisiw, a Cree term used to identify learned colonial (sick) behaviours. These behaviours manifested first among the administrative staff of the schools, then eventually emerged as female generational violence between, for example, mothers and daughters. Indigenous women in this study aimed to resolve this, their ‘main concern’, in order to strengthen familial relations, especially between female family members. Analysis resulted in the identification of a theory derived from the social process of potentializing wellness, which was grounded in the real-world experiences of Indigenous women. Potentializing wellness involves three dimensions: building personal competencies, moral compassing, and fostering virtues. It was revealed that Indigenous women perceive the ongoing generational effects of IRS differently, and as a result, three behavioural typologies emerged: living the norm, between the norm, and escaping the norm. The “norm” refers to the belief that violence is accepted as a normal part of family life. The paradox, of course, is that this type of behaviour is not normal and Indigenous women in this study are looking for ways to eliminate aggressive behaviours between women. The discoveries made in this research, coupled with the final integrative literature review, suggest that Indigenous People’s cultural ways of knowing have a holistic component that addresses all wellness levels. Effective strategies to deal with intergenerational trauma can emerge when holistic health is followed by, or happens concordantly with, reclaiming cultural norms grounded in community and spiritual life. Indigenizing a Western intervention is not enough. Focusing on the spiritual as well as emotional, physical, intellectual, and social aspects of self is seemingly the best approach for Indigenous People who are dealing with the intergenerational effects of trauma.

This essay explores historical trauma through the lens of post-memory and trauma theory, and aims to analyse the representation of historical trauma in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus. By using these theories, the essay explores how trauma can be passed on through generations, and how it ultimately affects not only the people who were there to experience it, but also those generations that came after. Furthermore, the essay argues that historical fiction belongs in the English classroom, and that teaching a novel such as Maus, could potentially be beneficial to the student’s own understanding of trauma. Multimodality is also explored to a certain extent, more specifically the benefits of teaching a material that uses both textual and visual imagery in its storytelling. The essay focuses on the didactic component of historical fiction and the opportunities it gives when implementing it in the classroom. The essay also seeks to explore the importance of teaching students to become compassionate individuals that believe in equality and are committed to human rights.

The dialogue around violence against women has gone from a private matter to a national audience, primarily due to the sexual violence on college campuses and a recognition that it is part of a comprehensive system of power that affects all women. Researchers have shown that sexual violence is a significant issue on college campuses and there are various demonstrations of how colleges and universities have found ways to support individuals who report these interactions. Although women of all races, ethnicities, and cultures are affected by sexual violence, how it is experienced racially and culturally is unique. African American women’s experiences are often missing from narratives because of the lack of understanding of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) an acknowledgment of the historical and ongoing oppression that they experience in both their race and gender identity. This understanding is essential because several studies show that African American women are at high risk of experiencing sexual violence (Cantor, et al., 2015) and are the least likely to disclose, not only on college campuses but in general. Although universities are making great strides to improve their support for students experiencing sexual violence, the area that continues to lack research and data explores how different cultures, specifically the African American culture, respond to and address issues of sexual violence. Given the lack of empirical information, how can African American women be supported and educated around the topic of sexual violence? With the increased sexual violence occurring on a college campus and researchers demonstrating that African American women are at higher risk of sexual assault and are the least likely to disclose their sexual violation, it is crucial to dissect the African American female college students' perspective. This qualitative study engaged participants in a semi-structured interview to understand how African American undergraduate women perceive sexual violence and how history has influenced their perception. There were six major themes identified from the study that helped provide insight into the four research questions. The findings reveal that participants in this research understand and can apply a foundational definition of sexual violence, as demonstrated through the use of the vignette method. The notion that African American women’s silence regarding sexual violence is due to a lack of awareness and education is unlikely; however, inappropriate sex education and sex-role socialization did influence disclosure patterns. The women in the study demonstrated that African American culture, history, and sex-role socialization influenced African American women’s’ perceptions of sexual violence, which resulted in barriers to help-seeking, and disclosure patterns about sexual violence. Findings revealed that there are complexities of African American women’s perceptions of sexual violence. The lack of intersectionality within messaging and educational efforts is active contributions to their silence. There were three primary recommendations for practice and policy and two primary recommendations for theory and research. These recommendations focus on communicating care and concern, including African American women's voices in decision-making processes, and understanding and honoring African American women's experiences concerning sexual violence practices. The recommendations for practice and policy are: (a.) Institutional response and care, (b.) Education and awareness, and (c.) Adopting a social justice paradigm for sexual violence; future research recommendations are (a.) peer support and research and (b.) African American women’s sexual self-acceptance. This study's findings provide insight into African American undergraduate women’s perceptions of sexual violence and its influence on help-seeking and disclosure patterns. It also provided a focused lens on how intersectionality assists African American women in navigating environments that have not traditionally included them. / Educational Leadership