Trauma and Repair: Confronting Segregation and Violence in America
Trauma and Repair: Confronting Segregation and Violence in America is an interview-based interdisciplinary exploration of complex trauma in low-income communities and neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland; Oakland, California; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Elaine, Arkansas.
Moving fluidly between the respondents’ life narratives and clinical and academic perspectives on trauma and inequality, Stopford depicts multidimensional and intergenerational trauma, including prolonged economic injustice and repeated exposure to community violence. Written in an accessible and engaging style that draws on insights from sociology, public health, history, legal studies, and clinical psychoanalysis, this original study is a vital addition to the literature on inequality and poverty in the United States.
“Trauma and Repair is not an easy read—nor should it be. A consummate interviewer, antiracist activist, interdisciplinary scholar, and psychoanalytic clinician, Annie Stopford... [has written] a must-read for anyone who cares to know what it takes to repair our broken social world.”
—LYNNE LAYTON, Harvard Medical School; author of Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Character, Culture and Normative Unconscious Processes
“Trauma and Repair is profoundly moving, informative, and honest. Stopford refuses to appease America’s appetite for euphemistic portrayals of those trapped in the generational legacy of historical trauma.... [Stopford] gives voice to those who live on the other side of the ‘privileged wall’ of society ... [and] uses her clinical sensibilities to engage those trapped.”
—KIRKLAND C. VAUGHANS, Adelphi University; author of Psychology of Black Boys and Adolescents
“Stopford is notable for the clear voice she brings to speaking about subjects many others have turned away from knowing. In this latest work... [the] lived histories of marginalization and trauma become painfully vivid. Her telling joins skillful listening with multiple disciplines... [and offers] a rare opportunity to learn lessons from past injustices that continue to play out in contemporary life.”
—NINA K. THOMAS, New York University
