CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 932Indigenous Health, Education, and RightsRacial and Ethnic Identity ResearchPosttraumatic Stress Disorder Research

The Historical Trauma Response Among Natives and Its Relationship with Substance Abuse: A Lakota Illustration

Heart, Maria Yellow Horse Brave·2003·Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
DOI 10.1080/02791072.2003.10399988
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Historical trauma (HT) is cumulative emotional and psychological wounding over the lifespan and across generations, emanating from massive group trauma experiences; the historical trauma response (HTR) is the constellation of features in reaction to this trauma. The HTR often includes depression, self-destructive behavior, suicidal thoughts and gestures, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, and difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions. It may include substance abuse, often an attempt to avoid painful feelings through self-medication. Historical unresolved grief is the associated affect that accompanies HTR; this grief may be considered fixated, impaired, delayed, and/or disenfranchised. This article will explain HT theory and the HTR, delineate the features of the HTR and its grounding in the literature, offer specific Native examples of HT and HTR, and will suggest ways to incorporate HT theory in treatment, research and evaluation. The article will conclude with implications for all massively traumatized populations.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/02791072.2003.10399988

Cites

25 of 25 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Extensive research has highlighted several mechanisms through which intergenerational trauma transmission may affect health disparities including impaired parenting and parental modeling of maladaptive post-traumatic behavioral patterns, secondary traumatization through transmission of trauma narratives to offspring, and potential epigenetic changes that increase susceptibility to mental and物理al?

    “Extensive research has highlighted several mechanisms through which intergenerational trauma transmission may affect health disparities including impaired parenting and parental modeling of maladaptive post-traumatic behavioral patterns (Auerhahn and Laub, 1998; Brave Heart, 2003; Krieg, 2009), secondary traumatization through transmission of trauma narratives to offspring (Brave Heart et al., 201”

    From Cultural trauma as a fundamental cause of health disparities (2022) · cites this paper as Brave Heart, 2003

  • Family bonds, healthy parenting role models, consistent socialization, the provision of extended family's love and affection, and cultural teachings were virtually eliminated with AIANs' removal from their lands and social networks.

    “Family bonds, healthy parenting role models, consistent socialization, the provision of extended family’s love and affection, and cultural teachings were virtually eliminated with AIANs’ removal from their lands and social networks [17,54,100,101].”

    From Substance and Behavioral Addictions among American Indian and Alaska Native Populations (2022) · cites this paper as [17]

  • Historical trauma has been identified as a prominent source of health disparity and used as a lens to contextualize rates of drug and alcohol use disorder in Indigenous populations.

    “Historical trauma has been identified as a prominent source of health disparity (Gone et al., 2019 for a review), and has been used as a lens to contextualize rates of drug and alcohol use disorder in Indigenous populations (Brave Heart, 2003).”

    From Culturally tailored substance use interventions for Indigenous people of North America: a systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as Brave Heart, 2003

  • The prevalence of Indigenous SUD stems in large part from intergenerational experiences of colonialism, namely historical trauma.

    “The prevalence of Indigenous SUD stems in large part from the intergenerational experiences of colonialism, namely, though historical trauma.”

    From Culturally tailored substance use interventions for Indigenous people of North America: a systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as Brave Heart, 2003

  • These experiences (colonization, historical trauma, racism) largely set the context for substance use.

    “and these experiences largely set the context for substance use (Brave Heart, 2003).”

    From Culturally tailored substance use interventions for Indigenous people of North America: a systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as Brave Heart, 2003

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Heart, M. Y. H. B.
Affiliations
University of Denver (US)
Corresponding author
Heart, Maria Yellow Horse Brave
Venue
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
2003-03
Volume
35
Issue
1
Pages
7-13
ISSN
  • 0279-1072 (ISSN-L)
  • 2159-9777
DOI
10.1080/02791072.2003.10399988
OpenAlex
W2018063740
Cited by
932
References
25
Citations by year
2026: 89 · 2025: 75 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 61 · 2022: 64 · 2021: 85 · 2020: 74 · 2019: 65 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 35 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 52 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 38 · 2012: 29
FWCI
5.38
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Journal of Psychoactive Drugs (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research
Keywords
historical trauma, substance abuse, Lakota, Native Americans, self-medication, unresolved grief, disenfranchised grief, intergenerational trauma, depression, suicidal ideation, trauma-informed care
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Alcoholism, Child, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Grief, Humans, Indians, North American, Male, Middle Aged, Self Medication, Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic, Transfer, Psychology, United States, Treatment Outcome, Intergenerational Relations, Secondary Prevention

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review