BYU’s Counseling and Psychological Services presented a lecture on intergenerational trauma for students of color on Oct 18.
BYU’s CAPS offers other services, such as individual and group therapy, stress management and biofeedback services and one-time consultations. CAPS is available to any full-time students or faculty at BYU. CAPS is currently presenting its Fall Semester 2022 Multicultural Forum, which highlights being students of color at BYU during the 9-week period.
Intergenerational trauma is defined by the APA dictionary of psychology as “a phenomenon in which the descendants of a person who has experienced a terrifying event show adverse emotional and behavioral reactions to the event that are similar to those of the person himself or herself.”
The CAPS lecture was about listening to, understanding and learning about BYU students of color’s experiences with intergenerational trauma. Many different cultures and racial backgrounds were represented, and participants shared stories about cultural and racial trauma. Definitions of trauma, trauma response and more were discussed and evaluated based on the experiences and thoughts of the group.
The forum is conducted as an open forum, and is semi-structured. Multicultural forum moderator Hoku Conklin said though there is a focus on a specific topic, he understands how circumstances may facilitate different conversations.
“We do have topics that we’ve identified in advance that we can talk about, but at the same time we want to focus on what’s most salient for those who come and join us,” Conklin said.
Cameron Hee, another moderator for the multicultural forum, said his goal is to “create a space for students to share.”
“We want for the forum to be a space for students to be able to talk about race-related stress,” Conklin said. “We want it to be a space that feels supportive and validating.”
Other forums CAPS will present include disarming racial micro-aggressions, cultural appropriation and cultural identity and well-being. The complete forum list can be found on CAPS’ Instagram.
CAPS conducts multicultural forums every semester, and the schedules are usually posted before the beginning of the semester.
CAPS also offers support groups to students of color and the multicultural forum to those who wish to have a safe space to talk about the difficulties and challenges that minorities at BYU may face.
