Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
by Joy Degruy Leary
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Description
"In the 16th century, the beginning of African enslavement in the Americas until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment and emancipation in 1865, Africans were hunted like animals, captured, sold, tortured, and raped. They experienced the worst kind of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual abuse. Given such history, isn't it likely that many of the enslaved were severely traumatized? And did the trauma and the effects of such horrific abuse end with the abolition of show more slavery? Emancipation was followed by one hundred more years of institutionalized subjugation through the enactment of Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, peonage, convict leasing, domestic terrorism and lynching. Today the violations continue, and when combined with the crimes of the past, they result in yet unmeasured injury. What do repeated traumas, endured generation after generation by a people produce? What impact have these ordeals had on African Americans today? The author answers these questions and more. With over thirty years of practical experience as a professional in the mental health field, the author encourages African Americans to view their attitudes, assumptions, and behaviors through the lens of history and so gain a greater understanding of how centuries of slavery and oppression has impacted people of African descent in America. This book helps to lay the necessary foundation to ensure the well-being and sustained health of future generations and provides a rare glimpse into the evolution of society's belief, feelings, attitudes and behavior concerning race in America." -- Publisher's description. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Heart-rending at times, I learned a lot. It inspired me to dig deeper into our collective history and helped me empathize with a struggle I can hardly imagine.
Gently methodical. Articulate and compelling. Practical. For every American who would read this, it would be one step more taken towards a less dysfunctional future for the nation.
This book should be given as a gift to all who want to understand what it means to inherit a mental/spiritual condition that bulkanizes the beautiful potential of the human being. I personally believe Dr. Leary's book should be mandatory in public schooling from the six grade to the 12th. Dr. Leary breaks down the reasons why we as blacks are so mentally ill and why some of us refuse to seek mental health.
This is a great read for anyone who wants to learn more about African Americans.
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Author Information
2 Works 422 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2005
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 305.896073 — Society, Government, and Culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Social group - Age, Gender, Ethnicity Ethnic and national groups Other ethnic and national groups Africans and people of African descent; Blacks of African origin standard subdivisions / located in North America African Americans {United States Blacks}
- LCC
- RC451.5 .N4 — Medicine Internal medicine Internal medicine Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Psychiatry
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 407
- Popularity
- 75,885
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (4.24)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 3
