Influential Article
An incredibly influential article I read while in our counseling program was "The Impact of Racial Microaggressions on Mental Health: Counseling Implications for Clients of Color" (2014). This article opened my eyes to the microaggressions faced daily by people of color in our country. The article centered around a study done that quantified both the number of daily microaggressions on people of color faced in our country, as well as and how it impacted their mental health. Microaggressions are defined as "brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group” (D. W. Sue, Capodilupo, et al., 2007, p. 273). The study found that there was an inverse relationship between number of racial microaggressions that a person of color would experience in a day versus their mental health. This meant that the study found that the more racial aggressions a person encountered, the more negatively the individual would view the world and the more depression, anxiety, and other negative mental health symptoms they would experience. This is an extremely important finding on many levels, but to counselors it is especially critical, as we must understand the outcome of this study to fully appreciate what many of our clients of color experience daily so that we can acknowledge these microaggressions and begin to not only help those who are impacted by them, but help others to understand how their actions or words can be micro aggressions against others.
References
Nadal, K. L., Griffin, K. E., Wong, Y., Hamit, S., & Rasmus, M. (2014). The impact of racial microaggressions on mental health:
Counseling implications for clients of color. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92(1), 57-66. doi:10.1002/j.1556-
6676.2014.00130.x
Sue, D. W., Bucceri, J., Lin, A. I., Nadal, K. L., & Torino, G. C. (2007). Racial microaggressions and the Asian American
experience.Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13, 72–81.
References
Nadal, K. L., Griffin, K. E., Wong, Y., Hamit, S., & Rasmus, M. (2014). The impact of racial microaggressions on mental health:
Counseling implications for clients of color. Journal of Counseling & Development, 92(1), 57-66. doi:10.1002/j.1556-
6676.2014.00130.x
Sue, D. W., Bucceri, J., Lin, A. I., Nadal, K. L., & Torino, G. C. (2007). Racial microaggressions and the Asian American
experience.Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13, 72–81.
![](http://www.weebly.com/weebly/images/file_icons/pdf.png)
The Impact of Racial Microaggressions | |
File Size: | 330 kb |
File Type: |