A Systematic Review of Black People Coping With Racism: Approaches, Analysis, and Empowerment

Jacob, G., Faber, S. C., et al. (2022).

Perspectives on Psychological Science.

https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221100509

Abstract

This article reviews the current research literature concerning Black people in Western societies to better understand how they regulate their emotions when coping with racism, which coping strategies they use, and which strategies are functional for well-being. A systematic review of the literature was conducted, and 26 studies were identified on the basis of a comprehensive search of multiple databases and reference sections of relevant articles. Studies were quantitative and qualitative, and all articles located were from the United States or Canada. Findings demonstrate that Black people tend to cope with racism through social support (friends, family, support groups), religion (prayer, church, spirituality), avoidance (attempting to avoid stressors), and problem-focused coping (confronting the situation directly). Findings suggest gender differences in coping strategies. We also explore the relationship between coping with physical versus emotional pain and contrast functional versus dysfunctional coping approaches, underscoring the importance of encouraging personal empowerment to promote psychological well-being. Findings may help inform mental-health interventions. Limitations include the high number of American-based samples and exclusion of other Black ethnic and national groups, which is an important area for further exploration.

From the Discussion section

Clinical implications

For clinicians seeking ways to support Black clients with racial trauma, the successful coping strategies enumerated here can serve as model starting points and should provide clients with greater agency and better outcomes (Heard-Garris et al., 2021; Hope et al., 2018) than the use of an ambiguous strategy. Therapy should be palpable positive affirmation; clients should feel validated and empowered. If they are religious, finding purpose in their experience even if it was negative can have a positive therapeutic effect. Helping clients find a coping strategy that affirms their intrinsic worth and beauty can also be profoundly therapeutic. If clients do not have affirmative social-support networks, or have dysfunctional social support, helping them find positively affirming support can be highly beneficial. Encouraging clients to create and make art, music, or prose out of their racist experience through positive reframing can be a transformative and proactive coping mechanism (Miller et al., 2020; Stuckey & Nobel, 2010). Certain forms of activism furthermore seem to have specific mental-health benefits (Heard-Garris et al., 2021; Montagno & Garrett-Walker, 2022; Riley et al., 2021). Ensuring that the coping mechanism chosen allows clients to reclaim their identity and dignity is essential. It is important to keep in mind that activism comes in many forms and may or may not involve formal protests or a Black Lives Matter event (E. K. Griffin & Armstead, 2020). Black clients can look for opportunities to promote antiracist change in their personal environments as well (work, school, community) through any number of prosocial means. For a cognitive-behavioral approach to helping clients with racial stress and trauma, see Williams et al. (in press).

The research is here.

Freezing revisited: coordinated autonomic and central optimization of threat coping

Roelofs, K., Dayan, P. 

Nat Rev Neurosci 23, 568–580 (2022).

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-022-00608-2

Abstract

Animals have sophisticated mechanisms for coping with danger. Freezing is a unique state that, upon threat detection, allows evidence to be gathered, response possibilities to be previsioned and preparations to be made for worst-case fight or flight. We propose that — rather than reflecting a passive fear state — the particular somatic and cognitive characteristics of freezing help to conceal overt responses, while optimizing sensory processing and action preparation. Critical for these functions are the neurotransmitters noradrenaline and acetylcholine, which modulate neural information processing and also control the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system. However, the interactions between autonomic systems and the brain during freezing, and the way in which they jointly coordinate responses, remain incompletely explored. We review the joint actions of these systems and offer a novel computational framework to describe their temporally harmonized integration. This reconceptualization of freezing has implications for its role in decision-making under threat and for psychopathology.

Conclusions and future directions

Considering the post encounter threat state from neural, psychological and computational perspectives has shown how the most obvious external characteristic of this state — a particular form of active freezing arising from co-activation of the normally opposed sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the ANS — could have various advantages from the viewpoints of both information processing and fast Pavlovian or instrumental action. Descending control of this state is quite well understood, and the potential benefits of expending effort on enhancing unbiased, bottom-up, sensory processing and engaging in planning are easy to observe. However, the roles of ascending neuromodulators in engaging these forms of appropriate information processing are less clear.  Certainly, various of the modes of action of ACh and NA in the CNS are in a position to achieve some of this; but much remains to be discovered by precisely recording and manipulating the candidate circuits within the timeframes of the detection, evaluation and action stages.

One important source of ideas is evolutionary theory. For instance, the polyvagal theory of the phylogeny of the ANS suggests that it progressed in three stages. The first, associated with an unmyelinated vagus nerve, allowed metabolic activity to be depressed in response to threat and also controlled aspects of digestion. The second stage was associated with the sympathetic nervous system, which organized energized behaviour for fight or flight. The third stage was associated with a myelinated vagus nerve and allowed for more flexible and sophisticated responding. It has been suggested that the last stage is particularly involved in the evolution of somatic regulation in a social context; but the evolutionary layering of the competition and cooperation between the inhibitory and activating aspects of the different branches of the ANS is notable. It would be interesting to understand the parallel evolution of cholinergic and noradrenergic neuromodulation in the CNS. 

A pdf is here.

Note: We are primates subject to the principles of biology and evolution.

Social threat indirectly increases moral condemnation via thwarting fundamental social needs

Henderson, R.K., Schnall, S. 

Sci Rep 11, 21709 (2021).

Abstract

Individuals who experience threats to their social needs may attempt to avert further harm by condemning wrongdoers more severely. Three pre-registered studies tested whether threatened social esteem is associated with increased moral condemnation. In Study 1 (N = 381) participants played a game in which they were socially included or excluded and then evaluated the actions of moral wrongdoers. We observed an indirect effect: Exclusion increased social needs-threat, which in turn increased moral condemnation. Study 2 (N = 428) was a direct replication, and also showed this indirect effect. Both studies demonstrated the effect across five moral foundations, and was most pronounced for harm violations. Study 3 (N = 102) examined dispositional concerns about social needs threat, namely social anxiety, and showed a positive correlation between this trait and moral judgments. Overall, results suggest threatened social standing is linked to moral condemnation, presumably because moral wrongdoers pose a further threat when one’s ability to cope is already compromised.

From the General Discussion

These findings indicating that social threat is associated with harsher moral judgments suggest that various threats to survival can influence assessments of moral wrongdoing. Indeed, it has been proposed that the reason social exclusion reliably results in negative emotions is because social disconnectedness has been detrimental throughout human societies. As we found in Studies 1 and 2 and consistent with prior research even brief exclusion via a simulated computer game can thwart fundamental social needs. Taken together, these experimental and correlational findings suggest that an elevated sense of danger appears to fortify moral judgment, because when safety is compromised, wrongdoers represent yet another source of potential danger. As a consequence, vulnerable individuals may be motivated to condemn moral violations more harshly. Interestingly, the null finding for loneliness suggests that amplified moral condemnation is not associated with having no social connections in the first place, but rather, with the existence or prospect of social threat. Relatedly, prior research has shown that greater cortisol release is associated with social anxiety but not with loneliness indicating that the body’s stress response does not react to loneliness in the same way as it does to social threat.

The research is here.

Burnout in mental health providers

Practice Research and Policy Staff
American Psychological Association Practice Organization
Originally published January 25, 2018

Burnout commonly affects individuals involved in the direct care of others, including mental health practitioners. Burnout consists of three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization of clients and feelings of ineffectiveness or lack of personal accomplishment (Maslach, Jackson & Lieter, 1997). Emotional exhaustion may include feeling overextended, being unable to feel compassion for clients and feeling unable to meet workplace demands. Depersonalization is the process by which providers distance themselves from clients to prevent emotional fatigue. Finally, feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of personal accomplishment occur when practitioners feel a negative sense of personal and/or career worth.

Studies estimate that anywhere between 21 percent and 61 percent of mental health practitioners experience signs of burnout (Morse et al., 2012). Burnout has been associated with workplace climate, caseload size and severity of client symptoms (Acker, 2011; Craig & Sprang, 2010; Thompson et al., 2014). In contrast, studies examining burnout prevention have found that smaller caseloads, less paperwork and more flexibility at work are associated with lower rates of burnout (Lent & Schwartz, 2012). Burnout results in negative outcomes for both practitioners and their clients. Symptoms of burnout are not solely psychological; burnout has also been linked to physical ailments such as headaches and gastrointestinal problems (Kim et al., 2011).

The following studies examine correlates and predictors of burnout in mental health care providers. The first study investigates burnout amongst practitioners working on posttraumatic stress disorder clinical teams in Veterans Affairs (VA) health care settings. The second study examines correlates of burnout in sexual minority practitioners, and the third study investigates the impact of personality on burnout. Finally, the fourth study examines factors that may prevent burnout.

The information is here.

Top 10 lies doctors tell themselves

Pamela Wible
www.idealmedicalcare.org
Originally published December 27, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Sydney Ashland: “I must overwork and overextend myself.” I hear this all the time. Workaholism, alcoholism, self-medicating. These are the top coping strategies that we, as medical professionals, use to deal with unrealistic work demands. We tell ourselves, “In order to get everything done that I have to get done. In order to meet expectations, meet the deadlines, then I have to overwork.” And this is not true. If you believe in it, you are participating in the lie, you’re enabling it. Start to claim yourself. Start to claim your time. Don’t participate. Don’t believe that there is a magic workaround or gimmick that’s going to enable you to stay in a toxic work environment and reshuffle the deck. What happens is in that shuffling process you continue to overcompensate, overdo, overextend yourself—and you’ve moved from overwork on the face of things to complicating your life. This is common. Liberate yourself. You can be free. It’s not about overwork.

Pamela Wible: And here’s the thing that really is almost humorous. What physicians do when they’re overworked, their solution for overwork—is to overwork. Right? They’re like, “Okay. I’m exhausted. I’m tired. My office isn’t working. I’ll get another phone line. I’ll get two more receptionists. I’ll add three more patients per day.” Your solution to overwork, if it’s overwork, is probably not going to work.

The interview is here.

Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?

By Jennifer Kahn
The New York Times
Originally published September 15, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

For children, Brackett notes, school is an emotional caldron: a constant stream of academic and social challenges that can generate feelings ranging from loneliness to euphoria. Educators and parents have long assumed that a child’s ability to cope with such stresses is either innate — a matter of temperament — or else acquired “along the way,” in the rough and tumble of ordinary interaction. But in practice, Brackett says, many children never develop those crucial skills. “It’s like saying that a child doesn’t need to study English because she talks with her parents at home,” Brackett told me last spring. “Emotional skills are the same. A teacher might say, ‘Calm down!’ — but how exactly do you calm down when you’re feeling anxious? Where do you learn the skills to manage those feelings?”

A growing number of educators and psychologists now believe that the answer to that question is in school. George Lucas’s Edutopia foundation has lobbied for the teaching of social and emotional skills for the past decade; the State of Illinois passed a bill in 2003 making “social and emotional learning” a part of school curriculums. Thousands of schools now use one of the several dozen programs, including Brackett’s own, that have been approved as “evidence-based” by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, a Chicago-based nonprofit. All told, there are now tens of thousands of emotional-literacy programs running in cities nationwide.

The theory that kids need to learn to manage their emotions in order to reach their potential grew out of the research of a pair of psychology professors — John Mayer, at the University of New Hampshire, and Peter Salovey, at Yale.

The entire story is here.