ABSTRACT

This chapter takes a detailed look at 250 years of slavery, enabling psychotherapists to understand how the traumatic experiences of slavery remain embedded in both African American and Caucasian American identity, as demonstrated in the narratives of my patients. The first part, “Brutal Centuries,” includes reports from slaves of their feelings about their conditions. “Living as Property” interweaves current material and slave narratives related to the effects of being property on marriage and parenting. “Under a Bushel,” relates slaves’ needs to keep their intelligence hidden so as not to threaten their masters’ need to feel superior and how that pattern continues. “Crabs in a Bucket,” discusses this old African American term denoting infighting among blacks. I look at the controversy surrounding the 1965 Moynihan Report. “Resistance, Survival, and Creativity,” looks at the inner resources and creative responses of the slaves to their oppression, including “Continuity with African Roots,” “The Sacred under Slavery,” using case material to consider the role of Christianity in helping the slaves and their descendants to cope, and “The Arts of Survival,” such as the use of folk tales, beliefs in magic, music, and humor.