What is it about?
Racial violence harms more than bodies and property. It also affects mental health and identity. This paper examines how racialized violence has limited Black choice from slavery to today, and how Black communities have simultaneously used faith, culture, and activism to restore it.
Featured Image
Photo by Nkululeko Mayiyane on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The ASR model offers a new way to understand Black mental health by examining racial harm and Black healing together. It reframes distress such as mistrust and hypervigilance as possible effects of sustained agency suppression, while recognizing culturally grounded practices as ways of restoring agency. This can shift research and clinical practice from treating symptoms in isolation to addressing structural harm and supporting Black communities’ own pathways to healing.
Perspectives
For me, this article was about telling a fuller story of Black mental health one that takes racial harm seriously without defining Black people only by that harm. I also wanted this conversation to be part of psychology, particularly how we train future researchers and clinicians to understand history, power, and culturally grounded healing. I hope readers see Black communities not simply as survivors of racial violence, but as active creators of healing, resistance, and restoration.
Grace Amoah
University of Pittsburgh
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The agency suppression and restoration (ASR) model: Understanding racialized psychological violence and Black healing., Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, September 2026, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/teo0000384.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
