Restoring What Racism Steals: The Impact and Healing of Racial Trauma In Clinical Social Work

Purpose: This study examines how Black and multiracial clinical social workers understand and respond to the continuous and intergenerational racial trauma experienced by clients of color. The aim is to illuminate how practitioners conceptualize racial trauma, how it manifests in clinical settings, and how anti-racism functions as a necessary component of effective therapeutic practice. The study positions racial trauma as a cumulative, systemic, and inherited experience that shapes emotional, psychological, and relational well-being across the lifespan, and seeks to identify how clinicians integrate anti-racist approaches to support healing and psychological liberation.

Method: Participants were recruited via LinkedIn flyers. I employed an interpretive phenomenological analysis methodology to conduct interviews with participants (n=12). Eighty-minute semi-structured interviews were completed: participants self-identified as Black (10), cis-women (7), cis-male (3), multiracial (2), cis-woman (1), gender expansive (1), heterosexual (8), and queer (4). My specific aim was to explore the anti-racist approaches utilized to address racial trauma and how it impacts clients of color. Data collection involved 12 semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom. With the participants' consent, all interviews were audio recorded. The data were analyzed using a five-step process consistent with interpretive phenomenological analysis. These steps include Reading and Exploring Notes, Formulating Experiential Statements, Identifying Connections and Clustering Experiential Statements, Compiling Tables of Personal Experiential Themes, and Conducting Cross-Case Analysis and member checking.

Findings: Participants described racial trauma as a continuous and deeply embedded experience shaped by systemic racism, historical oppression, and intergenerational transmission. They identified racial trauma as harming clients’ emotional and psychological functioning, identity development, and sense of safety in both personal and professional environments. Clinicians observed that racial trauma often presents through depression, anxiety, somatic distress, identity conflict, and internalized messages of racial inferiority. They also noted that traditional clinical frameworks frequently overlook or misinterpret these manifestations when racial context is not explicitly considered. Across interviews, practitioners emphasized that anti-racist clinical work requires intentionality, cultural attunement, and a commitment to naming and addressing the structural forces that shape clients’ lived experiences.

Discussion: The findings highlight the limitations of traditional clinical models that fail to recognize racism as a central determinant of mental health. Anti-racist practice expands the goals of therapy beyond symptom management toward empowerment, identity affirmation, and collective healing. The study underscores the importance of representation, relational safety, and culturally grounded approaches that acknowledge the sociopolitical realities shaping racially minoritized clients’ lives. It also demonstrates that anti-racist clinical practice is not solely an individual clinician’s responsibility but is shaped by institutional structures, training environments, and broader systems of power.

Implications: Implications for social work include integrating racial trauma exploration into standard clinical practice, embedding CRT-informed frameworks across social work education, and expanding anti-racist supervision and consultation. Organizations must adopt structural commitments to racial equity to support practitioners and clients alike. The study calls for a reimagining of clinical social work that centers racial trauma, affirms the expertise of Black, Indigenous, and other practitioners of color, and prioritizes healing, justice, and liberation for marginalized communities.