Group Treatment for Race-related Stresses among Minority Vietnam Veterans

Abstract Treatment for symptoms arising from exposure to adverse race-related events is critical to culturally competent healthcare delivery to ethnic minorities, particularly in light of recent findings demonstrating significant relationships between adverse race-related events and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and general psychiatric distress. This article offers a developmental model consisting of stages by which psychological symptoms develop in response to race-related stressors in the military. This article also describes a model of group treatment for ethnic minority veterans related to psychological symptoms arising from exposure to race-related stressors. Both models were used in a race-related support group for Pacific Islander Vietnam veterans diagnosed with PTSD. A combined approach of group intervention, psychosocial education, identity refram-ing, cognitive differentiation, and cognitive restructuring, which included ‘depersonalizing discrimination ’ and rejection of faulty beliefs, appear to offer an effective approach to treating psychological sequelae arising from Vol 44(1): 115–135 DOI: 10.1177/1363461507074980 www.sagepublications.com Copyright © 2007 McGill University transcultural psychiatr