My Grandmother’s Hands: a highly recommended book about community and healing from racism—as we all face the heart-wrenching news of reactivity and violence, and wonder how to turn the tide of racist prejudice. RECOMMENDED: Menakem’s FREE online course on Racialized Trauma
“A fascinating, must-read, groundbreaking book that offers a novel approach to healing America’s long-standing racial trauma.”?Joseph L. White, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry at UC Irvine, author of The Psychology of Blacks, Black Man Emerging, Black Fathers, and Building Multicultural Competency: Development, Training, and Practice
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More Reviews: My Grandmother’s Hands
“Menakem shares deeply personal stories woven effortlessly with threads of modern neuroscience and ancestral wisdom to illuminate a clear path to racial healing in America. His language around “white body supremacy” brings racism out of our heads and into our bodies so that we can FEEL that, despite our noblest intellectual intentions, our bodies remember and continue to act out learning from past generations that reproduce racism in our relationships today”… –Rachel Martin, a reader
“My Grandmother’s Hands invites each of us to heal the racial trauma that lives in our bodies. As Resmaa Menakem explains, healing this trauma takes courage and a commitment to viscerally feel this racial pain. By skillfully combining therapy expertise with social criticism and practical guidance, he reveals a path forward for individual and collective healing that involves experiencing the sensations of this journey with each step. Are you willing to take the first step?”?Alex Haley, Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota’s Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing
“As a career peace officer I entered this noble profession to serve my community, but I had never received any instruction in the police academy or been issued a piece of equipment that prepared me to recognize or examine community trauma . . . or my own. My Grandmother’s Hands gave me a profound and compelling historical map tracing law enforcement’s role as sometimes unknowing contributors to community trauma. The book gives peace officers tools that can help in the healing of their communities and emphasizes self-care so that the men and women entrusted to be guardians and protectors of our communities are taken care of as well.”?Medaria Arradondo, Chief, Minneapolis Police Department (who recently fired all 4 officers involved in the murder of George Floyd while he was in their custody)
Author Bio
Menakem is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence. Menakem has studied with bestselling authors Dr. David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). He also trained at Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute. Contact: https://www.resmaa.com/
Note: IMHU has no financial links to Menakem or his courses. We offer these recommendations as a public service. Check out our online courses on integrative mental health by clicking HERE.