The arrival of the pandemic known as COVID-19 has resulted in an emergency appraisal of the way mental health services are delivered to refugee and asylum-seeker populations at the Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts. The following commentary summarizes some of the main approaches used to address the unique needs of this vulnerable population under lockdown.

Cultural competence in trauma training, education and research has become a necessity given the changes in the U.S. population and the forces of globalization. With few exceptions little attention has been paid to the cultural training of traumatologists and the development of cultural competencies in this field. This paper will focus exclusively on examining the case for cultural competence in trauma psychology. The author reviews three factors that are key in the education and training of culturally informed trauma therapists, including best practices for educating mental health professionals in this field. These include: 1) The development of a trauma psychology curricula and training practices which give a thorough account of cultural factors; 2) The meaningful inclusion of cultural context in trauma psychology research and; 3) The promotion of organizational structures and culture within psychology that support cultural competence. The author offers future practice recommendations that are based on well established cultural competencies in the field of psychology.

The fields of trauma psychology and cultural psychology have rarely crossed paths within the context of mainstream psychology and psychiatry. Although clinical trauma psychology has acknowledged relevance of the ethical principle of respect for differences in trauma treatment, this has not so far motivated a systematic effort to improve our understanding of how culture is intertwined with our cognitive and emotional responses to trauma. As the field of disaster mental health has come to greater prominence in recent years, it has confronted trauma psychology with how profoundly the forms of both trauma and resilience are, as well as how ineffective traditional paradigms are in transcultural work. The author reviews some of the barriers in cultural considerations in trauma psychology and provides practical suggestions toward developing cultural competence benchmarks for trauma psychology education, training, and research.

This qualitative study used descriptive phenomenology to examine experiences of healing and reconciliation, for children of Holocaust survivors, through dialogue with children of the Third Reich. Descriptive phenomenological interviews with 5 participants yielded several common essential elements. The findings indicated that participants experienced a sense of healing of intergenerational trauma, a reduction in prejudice, and increase in motivation for pro-social behaviors. The degree to which these findings may reflect a shift in sense of identity, as well as the implications of the findings for conflict resolution, intergroup conflict reduction and peace psychology are discussed.

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