Pratyusha Tummala-Narra
Biographic Data
| ID | 905613 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Pratyusha Tummala-Narra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Pratyusha |
| FAMILY NAME | Tummala-Narra |
| SIGNATURE | TUMMALA-NARRA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4764-3831 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 202 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Racial minority clients’ experiences of sociocultural issues in psychotherapy
Cultural adaptation of an eating disorders measure for South Asian American women
new items to tap into culturally influenced constructs that likely impact ED presentations. Ultimately, this tool can enhance understanding of the nature, presentation, and cultural variation of EDs in SAs. This study is also one of the first to demonstrate how other clinical scientists can culturally adapt measures without translation
An exploration of shame among Mexican American survivors of sexual violence
Experiences of sexual violence among racial minority college men
20.5) participated in semistructured interviews on sex and SV socialization, discrimination and SV experiences, and coping, disclosure, and help-seeking. Interview data were analyzed using conventional content analysis, and multiple themes emerged under the following domains: (a) socialization experiences related to sex and SV, (b) psychological impact of SV, and (c) disclosure and coping experiences. The findings indicate that familial and socie…
Introduction to The Special Issue on the Psychoanalytic Exploration of Asian American Experiences
The Collapsing and Reclaiming of Subjectivity: Asians in the United States
The lack of mentalization of Asian American experiences has contributed to a collapsing of subjectivity within psychoanalysis and broader society. Racism directed against Asian Americans is often minimized or dismissed. This paper explores psychoanalytic perspectives on the invisibility, dissociation, and repression of Asian American experiences, the problem of homogenization, and the discomfort with multiplicity within the United States. Drawing…
Racism-Related Stress and Coping Among 1.5- and Second-Generation Asian Indian Americans
Perceptions of Asian Indian Americans (AIAs) as model minorities minimize the experiences of racism they face. The authors qualitatively examined racism and related coping among forty-four 1.5- and second-generation AIAs (sixteen 1.5-generation and twenty-eight second-generation; 79.54% women; ages 19-54 years). Grounded theory analysis of focus group interview data revealed three domains: (a) Awareness of and Experiences of Racism; (b) Psycholog…
The Fear of Breakdown and Racial Grief
“No time to grieve. No time to feel your anger. You just keep going. That’s what we do in my world.” Brittany, an African American woman in her 30s, shares these words and then sits silently in our
A qualitative exploration of Muslim American college students’ experiences of discrimination and coping
19.85). Conventional content analysis yielded 14 themes and 9 subthemes. Themes consisted of pride in Muslim identity; complexity of visible markers of Muslim identity; stereotypes; microaggressions; multiple, intersecting forms of oppression; historical, ongoing sociocultural trauma; overt Islamophobia; fear, anxiety, and distrust; impact on identity; sadness and hopelessness about the future; intrapsychic forms of coping; relational forms of co…
Transforming psychoanalysis for the public
This essay explores the inextricable connection between the psyche and the social, and its relevance to contemporary global challenges, such as isolation and polarization. The author discusses the possibilities that psychoanalysis holds for the public good, underscoring the application of psychoanalytic knowledge to understanding the social world and creating greater access to psychoanalytic knowledge. Notably, transforming psychoanalysis to refl…
Racial Socialization Experiences Among 1.5 and 2nd Generation Indian Americans
Few studies have focused on the racial socialization of Indian Americans, particularly those raised in the United States. The present study explored 1.5 and 2nd generation Indian Americans’ experiences of racial socialization in multiple contexts. Forty-four adult Indian Americans from diverse regions of the United States participated in semi-structured focus group interviews via video teleconference. Sixteen participants were 1.5 generation and …
Reenvisioning ethnic–racial identity: Asian Indian American experiences
Identity formation among immigrant communities, particularly for ethnic-racial minorities like Asian Indian Americans, is a multifaceted process. Shaped by preimmigration histories of British colonization and the caste system and the Indian diasporic postimmigration, experiences of physical and psychological displacement alongside racism in the United States contribute to the complexity of identity for this community. Although existing racial and…
In Pursuit of Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis: Findings and Recommendations from the Holmes Commission
Discrimination and Mental Health Outcomes Among 1.5- and 2nd-Generation Muslim College Students
In the United States, Muslims live in a climate of heightened Islamophobia and racism. While research has indicated the negative mental health impacts of discrimination among Muslim Americans, the relationship between specific types of discrimination and mental health among 1.5- and 2nd-generation racial minority immigrant-origin Muslim American emerging adults remains unclear. This study, with a sample of 128 1.5- and 2nd-generation, racial mino…
Awakening to Racial Trauma Faced by Asian Americans
Dr. Kris Yi’s article elucidates Asian Americans’ experiences of racial trauma. Dr. Yi’s insights are both critical and compelling as she brings the racial pain of Asian Americans to the foreground of psychoanalytic inquiry. She illustrates how the model minority stereotype and gendered racism shape the disillusionment that many Asian Americans face, while calling for a more active engagement of psychoanalysis with Asian American experiences. Thi…
Experience of Sexual Violence Among Women of Mexican Heritage Raised in the United States
Sexual violence against women is a significant public health crisis that is understudied among Mexican American communities. Yet, there has been little attention directed to sociocultural factors that shape conceptualizations of and responses to sexual violence among Mexican American women. Guided by an integrative contextual framework, this qualitative study aimed to expand knowledge of how second generation Mexican American women conceptualize,…
Integrating Sociocultural Trauma and Context in Conceptualizations of Attachment
Bruce Herzog offers an important elaboration of a parent’s refusal to let go of a child and the subsequent psychological burden placed on the child. The pain of separation is underscored as the child must negotiate differentiation at a cost of losing connection to an overly demanding parent. This commentary focuses on the role of traumatic stress on parent-child attachments and the integration of sociocultural context into psychoanalytic conceptu…
Can We Decolonize Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice
Theorizing about the unconscious has been largely based on white, Euro-American notions of the primitive, dismissing the perspectives of nonwhite people and contributing to individual and collective injustice. Importantly, foundational conceptualizations of human development, such as those regarding the concept of dependency, have been shaped through white, Euro-American colonization. This manuscript addresses the complicity of psychoanalysis in …
Rise of anti-Asian violence and the Covid-19 pandemic for Asian Americans
Asian Americans and the impact of anti-Asian racism during the Covid-19 pandemic: Part II
Between Despair and Hope
A single moment captured my feelings about the 2020 presidential election–the look on my sons’ faces upon hearing the news that Biden and Harris won. The relief and joy in their eyes poignantly con
Intergenerational family conflict and ethnic identity among Chinese American college students
There has been a call for increased attention to experiences of sociocultural contexts and their role in mental health and help-seeking among specific subgroups of Asian Americans (Leong, Park, & Kalibatseva, 2013). In particular, as suggested by the integrative contextual framework of minority youth development (García Coll & Marks, 2012), racial minority adolescents and emerging adults develop identity and psychological well-being through their…
A Discussion of “Going to Where the World Ends: When the Bodies of Children Speak Who is Listening?”
This commentary is a response to Dr. Rachael Peltz’s paper (this issue) concerning the experience of resignation syndrome among refugee children in Sweden, and more broadly extreme traumatic stress endured by refugees globally. Dr. Peltz’s paper raises important questions for psychoanalytic practitioners and scholars concerning our engagement with sociocultural and political trauma and violence directed against children and families. My commentar…
Racial Trauma and Dissociated Worlds within Psychotherapy: A Discussion of “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back”
The accounts of three Black authors (also patients and therapists), Matee, Jwili, and Vilakazi, offer a unique opportunity to expand understandings of racial trauma and racial dynamics in psychotherapy, and call for systemic change in psychoanalysis toward racial equity and inclusivity. This commentary elaborates on the issue of racial trauma within our profession, and the persistent disconnection between the experiences of BIPOC and White people…
The fear of immigrants
A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Help-Seeking Processes Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence
This paper suggests a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of help-seeking among survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). A cognitive theory from general literature on help-seeking in "stigmatizing" situations suggests three relevant processes or stages of seeking help in the IPV context: defining the problem, deciding to seek help, and selecting a source of support. Individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors that i…
Perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms among immigrant-origin adolescents
Although discrimination has been found to contribute to psychological distress among immigrant populations, there are few studies that have examined the relationship between racial and ethnic discrimination in the school setting among foreign-born immigrant and U.S.-born immigrant-origin adolescents. This study examined the relationship between perceived discrimination by adults and peers in the school setting and depressive symptoms in a sample …
Conceptualizing Trauma and Resilience Across Diverse Contexts: A Multicultural Perspective
This paper offers a multicultural understanding of trauma and resilience as experienced in the lives of individuals from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. The research and clinical literature on resilience has focused largely if not exclusively on individual personality traits and coping styles, and has neglected to explore all possible sources and expressions of resilience in individuals and groups. For many ethnic minorities, traditional…
Cultural Oppression and Human Trafficking: Exploring the Role of Racism and Ethnic Bias
Human trafficking is maintained within a context of intersecting forms of oppression. Cultural oppression, including racism and ethnic bias, creates additional risk for human trafficking and generates unique challenges for prevention and intervention. There are, however, cultural strengths that survivors of human trafficking have that may be utilized to aid their recovery process as well as psychotherapeutic interventions. In addition to traditio…
Perceptions of Race-Based Discrimination Among First-Generation Asian Indians in the United States
The current study examined how historical, social, and political contexts in their country of origin and their host country have influenced first-generation Asian Indians’ racialized experiences in the United States. We conducted nine separate focus groups with a total of 50 first-generation Asian Indian participants (20 men and 30 women). In a semistructured interview, participants were asked about the factors that influence their perceptions of…
The Experience of Ethnic and Racial Group Membership Among Immigrant-Origin Adolescents
Immigrant-origin adolescents in the United States face a number of stressors across different social contexts (e.g., home, school), and yet, distress related to these stressors often goes unnoticed and access to resources is limited. This study examined how racial minority immigrant-origin adolescents in an urban setting construct and negotiate experiences of their ethnic and racial group membership, acculturative stress, and approaches to coping…
Psychotherapy with South Asian Women: Dilemmas of the Immigrant and First Generations
Immigration imposes changes in gender role expectations and sexual expression that can contribute to acculturative stress and intergenerational conflicts. This article focuses on how immigrant and first-generation South Asian women in the United States negotiate losses incurred in immigration and navigate multiple cultural contexts. Immigrant women, having been raised in the country of origin and migrating to the United States as adults, face uni…
Racial Socialization Experiences Among 1.5 and 2nd Generation Indian Americans
Few studies have focused on the racial socialization of Indian Americans, particularly those raised in the United States. The present study explored 1.5 and 2nd generation Indian Americans’ experiences of racial socialization in multiple contexts. Forty-four adult Indian Americans from diverse regions of the United States participated in semi-structured focus group interviews via video teleconference. Sixteen participants were 1.5 generation and …
Reenvisioning ethnic–racial identity: Asian Indian American experiences
Identity formation among immigrant communities, particularly for ethnic-racial minorities like Asian Indian Americans, is a multifaceted process. Shaped by preimmigration histories of British colonization and the caste system and the Indian diasporic postimmigration, experiences of physical and psychological displacement alongside racism in the United States contribute to the complexity of identity for this community. Although existing racial and…
A Psychodynamic Perspective on the Negotiation of Prejudice Among Immigrant Women
The negotiation of prejudice among immigrant women has largely been unaddressed in the psychotherapy literature. In an increasingly pluralistic society, such as the United States, it is especially important to address needs of specific subgroups of women who experience racial and ethnic prejudice. Immigrant women are in a unique position to simultaneously encounter prejudice related to multiple aspects of social identity, such as gender, race, an…
The immigrant's real and imagined return home
In Pursuit of Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis: Findings and Recommendations from the Holmes Commission
Dynamics of Race and Culture in the Supervisory Encounter
A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Help-Seeking Processes Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence
This paper suggests a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of help-seeking among survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). A cognitive theory from general literature on help-seeking in "stigmatizing" situations suggests three relevant processes or stages of seeking help in the IPV context: defining the problem, deciding to seek help, and selecting a source of support. Individual, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors that i…
Addressing Political and Racial Terror in the Therapeutic Relationship
Political and racial terror have important implications for the process of psychotherapy. This type of trauma can have unique effects on individual psychology and the larger social context of patients' lives that are distinct from other types of interpersonal trauma. Several intrapsychic processes, such as one's experience of mirroring, fear of annihilation, identification and internalization of aggression, the collective remembering of trauma, a…
Skin color and the therapeutic relationship
Although issues pertinent to psychotherapy with ethnic minorities have been attended to increasingly over the past two decades, the issue of skin color has more or less been neglected in the psychotherapy literature. The idealization of light skin color in mainstream White and ethnic minority communities in the United States has impacted a wide range of societal and individual perceptions ranging from physical attractiveness to intellectual and s…
Conceptualizing Trauma and Resilience Across Diverse Contexts: A Multicultural Perspective
This paper offers a multicultural understanding of trauma and resilience as experienced in the lives of individuals from diverse cultural and racial backgrounds. The research and clinical literature on resilience has focused largely if not exclusively on individual personality traits and coping styles, and has neglected to explore all possible sources and expressions of resilience in individuals and groups. For many ethnic minorities, traditional…
The relevance of a psychoanalytic perspective in exploring religious and spiritual identity in psychotherapy
Teaching on diversity: The mutual influence of students and instructors
Contemporary Impingements on Mothering
Battered women know best
The immigrant's real and imagined return home
Looking Beneath the Surface: Trauma, Invisibility, and the Negotiation of Identity in the Minyan
When I first moved to the United States as a child, I considered my home to be my birthplace in India where I lived with my family for seven years. Later in adolescence, I developed the sense that
Asian Indians' responses to discrimination: A mixed-method examination of identity, coping, and self-esteem
Perceived discrimination, acculturative stress, and depression among South Asians: Mixed findings
Relational experiences of complex trauma survivors in treatment: Preliminary findings from a naturalistic study
The psychological life of survivors of complex trauma can be marked with feelings of shame, self-blame, and powerlessness, which contribute to challenges in self-care and positive relating with others. This preliminary study aimed to increase understanding of how survivors of complex trauma engaged in treatment experience relationships with significant people in their lives. We were particularly interested in the following relational areas: Safet…
A Psychodynamic Perspective on the Negotiation of Prejudice Among Immigrant Women
The negotiation of prejudice among immigrant women has largely been unaddressed in the psychotherapy literature. In an increasingly pluralistic society, such as the United States, it is especially important to address needs of specific subgroups of women who experience racial and ethnic prejudice. Immigrant women are in a unique position to simultaneously encounter prejudice related to multiple aspects of social identity, such as gender, race, an…
Contemporary psychoanalytic views on the experience of immigration
Psychoanalytic applications in a diverse society
A Qualitative Examination of Muslim Graduate International Students' Experiences in the United States
Although there has been an increase in enrollment of Muslim international students in college campuses in the United States over the past decade, few studies have examined the experiences of cultural adjustment among Muslim graduate international students. In the present qualitative study, we examined graduate students' experiences of acculturation, engagement with religion, and negotiation of social support in a new cultural environment. Semistr…
Expanding our borders: Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology’s special issue on immigration
Introduces the current special issue of the journal, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology. This special issue focuses on the topic of immigration and highlights the important within group differences often overlooked when immigrants are conceptualized as a homogeneous group. The articles in this journal consider a variety of microsystems, such as educational settings, ethnic and gay communities, and communities with anti-immigration …
Growing at the Hyphen: Female Friendships and Social Context
Although the psychological literature has focused more on immigrant women's roles in their families, women's friendships are important sources of support and identity development. This article explores the development of friendship in the context of immigration, cultural adaptation, becoming a template for identity and intimacy. Specifically, the author describes a personal friendship and a psychotherapy case vignette, integrating feminist, multi…
Women and Immigration: Feminist and Multicultural Perspectives on Identity, Acculturation, and Implications for Clinical Practice
Psychotherapy with South Asian Women: Dilemmas of the Immigrant and First Generations
Immigration imposes changes in gender role expectations and sexual expression that can contribute to acculturative stress and intergenerational conflicts. This article focuses on how immigrant and first-generation South Asian women in the United States negotiate losses incurred in immigration and navigate multiple cultural contexts. Immigrant women, having been raised in the country of origin and migrating to the United States as adults, face uni…
Perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms among immigrant-origin adolescents
Although discrimination has been found to contribute to psychological distress among immigrant populations, there are few studies that have examined the relationship between racial and ethnic discrimination in the school setting among foreign-born immigrant and U.S.-born immigrant-origin adolescents. This study examined the relationship between perceived discrimination by adults and peers in the school setting and depressive symptoms in a sample …
Cultural identity in the context of trauma and immigration from a psychoanalytic perspective
Violence exposure and mental health among adolescents: The role of ethnic identity and help seeking
Psychology (55 works) · Social Psychology (32 works) · Sociology (32 works) · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research (26 works) · Ethnic group (23 works) · Political science (22 works) · Psychoanalysis (19 works) · Psychotherapist (19 works) · Clinical Psychology (15 works) · Gender Studies (15 works)