Researcher Joy DeGruy’s book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome , is the result of years of historical and psychological research.
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) describes a set of behaviors, beliefs, and actions associated with multi-generational trauma experienced by African Americans. PTSS includes, among other things, undiagnosed and untreated Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome in enslaved Africans and their descendants.
According to Joy DeGruy, PTSS means that centuries of enslavement in the U.S., followed by systematic and structural racism and oppression, have resulted in intergenerational pathogenic behaviors that serve as survival strategies.
According to DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome cannot simply be treated clinically. Instead, it requires fundamental social change by individuals and institutions that perpetuate injustice and inequality against descendants of enslaved Africans. In this volume, the author explains the origins and manifestations of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. She goes on to explain how resulting behaviors can be transformed within a process of healing.
Joy DeGruy Leary 2005: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Oregon: Uptone Press.