Writings

EMDR Certification

EMDR Certification
I'm pleased to share that I have obtained my EMDR certification through EMDRIA, the international association that accredits EMDR therapists. An EMDR Certified Therapist has engaged in at least 20 hours of...

A Fork in the Road

A Fork in the Road
I just finished binge watching the Netflix miniseries Beef, starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as strangers whose fates become unexpectedly intertwined through a series of unpredictable twists. It was so satisfying. I love Wong as a comedian but have ...

To suffer the paradox 

To suffer the paradox 
I’ve been rereading Jungian analyst Robert Johnson’s Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. It’s a little gem of a book that explores a much loved topic in Jungian psychology: the shadow side of our personality.  My...

Of book clubs and reading lists

Of book clubs and reading lists
I’ve always wanted to start a book club. Specifically, one which focuses on books by writers from Africa and the diaspora. There are so many amazing Black authors out there. I loved the African Writer's Series of my high school days: writers like...

Sensory orientation

Sensory orientation
Holiday travel for me brings with it some weird feelings of disorientation. I wake up 30,000 feet in the air to the smell of coffee being served by flight attendants and the sound of a baby crying across the aisle. (We just had lunch, jumped two...

Appreciating the Highly Sensitive Person

Appreciating the Highly Sensitive Person
 Do you sometimes feel so overstimulated by your environment - bright lights, strong smells, loud noises - that you have to retreat to a quiet place or wear noise canceling headphones to find relief? Does that cup of coffee leave you feeling...

Memory retrieval

Memory retrieval
How much would you risk to retrieve your lost memories if they felt important to you? The movies I’ve been watching lately happen to have themes revolving around this question. They explore how past memories shape our identity and ideas about who we ...

The Shadow Side of Technology

The Shadow Side of Technology
An upcoming lecture on the shadow of technology by Jungian analyst Doug Tyler, PhD, reminds me of a recent experience: One morning on my drive to work, I noticed my phone wasn't in its regular position on my dashboard. A dreadful panic gripped...

Back to school

Back to school
Around me lately, the talk has been about winding down the summer fun and getting students ready for a new school year (can you believe that August is already upon us?) Although I taught for almost two decades and found teaching to be a deeply...

Understanding our dreams

Understanding our dreams
Have you ever awakened from a dream and wondered what it all meant? Was it just random brain activity, or could there be a valuable nugget to take away and use in real life? And then there’s recurring dreams and nightmares. You may notice similar...

Ten things to do this Black History Month

Ten things to do this Black History Month
February 2021 was a blur. We had just witnessed the swearing in of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harrison, and the beautiful poetry of Amanda Gordon. All this while hunkering down in pandemic mode and reeling from the aftermath of...

No Coming, No Going - A Remembrance of Thich Nhat Hanh

No Coming, No Going - A Remembrance of Thich Nhat Hanh
Today our human family grieves as we reflect with deep gratitude on the extraordinary life, legacy, and gifts of beloved Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thich Nhat Hanh (known affectionately as Thay or teacher), who died at age 95. Through his...

Coming home

Coming home
Sometimes home is the place where we remember some of our earliest feelings of love, safety, friendship, and belonging; a foundation upon which our lives and personalities are built. At other times, home is where our psychological complexes are...

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales

Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales
You cannot sit still when a master African storyteller is telling a tale, nor should you. You're moving with with drumbeats, joining in the call-and-response songs, shouting out magic incantations to release a poor character from danger, cheering...

Donald Kalsched on Violence and Trauma in our Culture

Donald Kalsched on Violence and Trauma in our Culture
I attended my first lecture by Jungian analyst Dr Donald Kalsched almost a decade ago, when he did a weekend workshop on trauma at the Jung Society of Atlanta titled The Soul in Hell and its Liberation, and shared insights from his book Trauma and...

In Treatment Season 4

In Treatment Season 4
Here's how much of a fiend for the HBO series In Treatment I am: I watched the entire series when the show first aired about a decade ago. Then every few months, I kept looking to see if there was a new season. When it didn't come, I just watched...

July is Minority Mental Health Month

July is Minority Mental Health Month
The enormous challenges of the past year, particularly the COVID-19 outbreak and racial justice protests, highlighted what people in minority communities have long known: that there is an urgent need for mental health services in our communities,...

"Once upon a time...."

"Once upon a time...."
Remember how these words enchanted you as a child? If you're lucky enough to still be connected with your inner child, they probably still do. Fairy tales inform, delight, guide, and inspire us. They come in various forms but are universal and...

America’s opus contra naturam

America’s opus contra naturam
The verdict has been passed. George Floyd’s killer has been found guilty of charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. It’s hardly been a year since we saw the horrific images of Floyd’s...

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart
It got me thinking about one of my favorite books from high school, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which is part one of the African Trilogy that includes Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease....

To serve is to reign

To serve is to reign
On an online chat with my former schoolmates a couple of days ago, we talked about our high school motto “servire est regnare”, Latin for “to serve is to reign”. We waxed nostalgic about our high school days and how we loved to belt out this phrase...

Parts of Self

Parts of Self
Ever been in a situation where you had to make a choice between one thing or another, but for the life of you, you couldn’t decide - one part of you wanted to go one way and the other the opposite way? (And for the sake of argument: no, you can’t...

Jung's Black Books are here!

Jung's Black Books are here!
The Jung Society of Atlanta is honored to host a lecture on C. G. Jung's Black Books on January 31, by renowned Jungian scholar, Sonu Shamdasani, PhD, Professor of Jung History at the School of European Languages, Culture and Society (German) at...

Understanding psychological trauma

Understanding psychological trauma
The word trauma gets thrown around a lot these days. As a trauma therapist, many people come to me “to do trauma work”. Broadly speaking, psychological trauma happens when a person witnesses or experiences a negative event that is so overwhelming...

The Transcendent Function

The Transcendent Function
I love the word “transcendent” and all its derivations, like transcendentalist, transcendental meditation, and the psychological concept of the transcendent function. The International Cambridge Dictionary defines transcend as “to go beyond or rise...

The Archetype of the Ally

The Archetype of the Ally
What does it mean to be an ally in the struggle for racial justice? Allies speak out when they witness injustice, wherever it may show up. They use their voices and actions to call out impunity and demand accountability. ...

Fed up and fired up

Fed up and fired up
The events of the past few weeks, particularly the sickening, cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in broad daylight, was devastating not only to Black communities in America, but to all decent humans everywhere. The outcry...

Shift Happens

Shift Happens
And nobody knows how it will all play out in the end. Do we emerge in paradise or in hell? Only time will tell. Yet this question can best be answered by how conscious we are as we proceed, how we handle this opportunity to evolve....

In praise of solitude

In praise of solitude
With practice, we can relearn the enjoyment of solitude. We were good at it as kids. We may remember this from our own childhood or from watching a child play alone for hours, delighting in every moment, unconcerned or unaware of the gaze of others....

Confessions of an introvert

Confessions of an introvert
This is a common misconception about introverts – that we are shy, antisocial, and unfriendly. These erroneous ideas have tainted the definition of “introversion” from the way it was originally proposed by psychiatrist Carl Jung....

Who will you walk with?

Who will you walk with?
I once heard Oprah talk about how she deals with being a successful Black business woman in a white man’s world. She said she often walks into a meeting to find she is not just the only woman, she is the only person of color. Some of the people she...

Encountering your shadow

Encountering your shadow
Everybody has a shadow. While the shadow part of our personality can do much damage, this doesn’t mean it is evil. In fact, it can be a source of much creativity and insight, if we engage it consciously. Psychiatrist Carl Jung stated that it is...

EMDR

EMDR
Sleep scientists tell us that REM sleep is important for memory consolidation and helping us process events that we experienced during the day. EMDR uses this knowledge to help people process trauma by using eye movements....

The Hero’s Journey - Bilbo Baggins

The Hero’s Journey - Bilbo Baggins
It seems that once you accept the call to adventure (or it is thrust upon you), you can never go back: you know too much, you have seen too much, you are never the same again. This can be the source of profound loneliness, where life feels...

On Splitting and Re-finding the Soul: Traumas, Horcruxes, and the Fall of Voldemort

On Splitting and Re-finding the Soul: Traumas, Horcruxes, and the Fall of Voldemort
In a sense, I think we are all a bit like Voldemort. We split our souls—unconsciously, by not accepting all parts of ourselves—then conceal these “soul pieces” and continue to live our lives with the discarded fragments scattered messily...