Addressing Trauma and Minority Stress: Towards an Intersectional Approach to EMDR with LGBT-POC Clients

This project explores the stressors and trauma faced by people with intersecting sexual/gender minority identities and racial/ethnic minority identities, as well as the existing interventions for managing trauma. Eye-movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is explored as a treatment which is empirically effective and has the potential to address the unique needs of multiple minority individuals in clinical practice. A gap in the literature on strategies of culturally relevant and competent EMDR for multiple minority clients was found and discussed as an area needing future inquiry. EMDR is framed as an endeavor to mitigate the impacts of widespread violence and stressors, with the goal of treating trauma. Moreover, EMDR is shown to have the potential to increase health equity for LGBT-POC individuals, who are at greater risk of mental health disorders.

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Hi everyone, my name is James condo. And the title of my paper is addressing trauma and minority stress towards an intersectional approach to EMDR with LGBT POC clients.

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Now let’s go over the contents.

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In the introduction all explained the goals of my project, and then we’ll go over my literature review and the gap and the research I found. In the discussion. I’ll talk about frameworks for understanding, and then I’ll talk about what the project contributes to scholarly space

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what comes next.

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All right, moving into the introduction, my research questions are as follows. What are the stressors impacting people who hold intersecting identities of being LGBTQ and people of color? And then what are the existing interventions for managing stress? We’re going to move into key concepts that are necessary for understanding this project. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Bilateral stimulation is used to safely process trauma in this case, with the end goal of deconstructing the negative self concept one may have about themselves because of trauma. minority stress theory is the hypothesis that the stressors of social marginalization are at least partly to blame for health disparities among various demographic minorities. This can come in the form of institutional discrimination, it can come in the form of everyday discrimination, and it can also come in the form of major negative life events such as hate crime. Alright, now we’re going to go on to the literature. The literature review, I’ll be going over my findings on minority stress on coping mechanisms and on trauma interventions. In my research on minority stress, both for LGBTQ plus folks and people of color discriminatory stressors are associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms and suicidality, as well as deteriorating physical health. This is a major concern for clinicians and public health officials. Now let’s go over the coping mechanisms and protective factors to see how folks with marginalized identities manage the stress. LGBTQ plus people in the literature usually exhibit community seeking behaviors to garner external support. People of color in the literature often recalled experiencing protective socialization, preparing them for bias and marginalization. Those who had intersecting sexual and gender and racial ethnic minority identities found that race usually more comprehensively organize their lives. So they recall the importance of parental racial ethnic socialization as well. What happens when coping mechanisms and protective factors aren’t enough. This is where trauma interventions come in. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of these common trauma interventions for minority stress often involving the reprogramming of thought patterns. EMDR involves deconstructing negative self concepts for minority

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clients.

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The main problem with the existing literature is that it has a major gap. It is not intersectional. The research either looks at culturally competent EMDR for racial ethnic minorities or sexual gender minorities, and does not address the unique needs of clients with intersecting identities.

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Alright, now let’s go into my discussion.

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The first part of the discussion is why I’m specifically discussing EMDR. The first reason is that it’s an empirically verifiable treatment and that there’s already a great deal of literature on gearing therapy towards the specific needs of minority populations and having culturally competent therapy. I’m also framing EMDR as a treatment that is in need of expanded use and accepts. The first reason for this is the pervasiveness of violence, whether direct natural structural or cultural EMDR can be used as a widespread treatment to treat this trauma. EMDR has also has the potential to reduce mental health disparities among minority individuals. But this requires reducing barriers to mental healthcare access, such as affordability. Now let’s look at the implications. The main implication is that there must be more research done to produce an intersectional model of EMDR. There are multiple ways forward that I thought the first potential route is a clinical trial. But this has many structural barriers because it’s an institutional review board is not likely to approve a trial that is working on multiple minority populations without a lot of work and a lot of justification for why it’s ethically viable. Case studies would also be a more accessible route to take for research. In this case, I would be interviewing clinicians to see how they manage multiple minority stress and their clinical

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practice.

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Ultimately, EMDR for LGBT POC has the potential to reduce mental health disparities if we increase access to care and thus put underserved populations on the path towards healing. All right, thank you and respond with any questions below.