Shouldering Grief: Validating Native American Historical Trauma

Shouldering Grief: Validating Native American Historical Trauma

Dr. Brave Heart, conceptualized historical trauma in the 1980’s, as a way to develop stronger understanding of why life for many Native Americans is not fulfilling “the American Dream.” Although, many Native Americans have adapted to an Americanized way of life and are healthy and economically self-sufficient, there is still a significant proportion of Native people who are not faring well.

Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health

Inherited Trauma Shapes Your Health

This explains the epigenome as a type of software that runs on the computer-like cell. The epigenome can affect lots of different cells, just as a software program can be run on many different computers. He thinks this study might help explain why states in the southern United States—which had more severe food shortages during and after the Civil War—have worse health outcomes today.

The Things We Carry: What Our Ancestors Didn’t Tell Us

The Things We Carry: What Our Ancestors Didn’t Tell Us

In my own life, I couldn’t account for the dread that would sometimes descend on me for no apparent reason. It seemed to me there was something vaster, more amorphous and inexplicable at work than the usual psychological culprits. I needed to understand what it was. I began to wonder if the darkness I carried had its source in the suffering of unknown ancestors whose history of banishment and exile was in my blood.