Relatability and Therapeutic Support
In 2013, I took a short sabbatical away from a doctoral program. I needed space to decide whether I wanted to continue. After a brief visit to New York to reconnect with myself and visit a friend, I realized that I was refreshed by the end of that sabbatical. At first I assumed should I get refreshed, I would feel re-energized and enthusiastically prepare for committee meetings about my dissertation proposal.
Instead, I was refreshed in a profound way that led me to a “no.”
So, in 2014, I left a Ph.D program in Sociology on my own terms.
During my program, I’d passed my Comprehensive Exams which meant I met the academic milestone indicating that I had a comprehensive understanding of my three research areas:
👋🏾 Sense of Belonging
👋🏾 Politics of Social Identity
👋🏾 The Role of Power and Social Location
I’d been President of the Black Graduate Student Association of one of the best Research 1 institutions in the Midwest. I was an ESL tutor for a local organization nearby. And, I was involved in an external research project uplifting the voices of Black elders from the country of Panama which was associated with an Ivy League institution within my network.
I loved these research areas. I lived them - so much so that I got “Sense of Belonging” tattooed on my left shoulder.
But I had to confront the reality that the academic path didn’t have a monopoly over these topics. I discerned I could pursue this type of work outside the Ivory Tower. And if anything, a doctoral program taught me that these areas have a direct relationship to mental health outcomes.
Now, simply because this was my path - shifting away from academia at this particular time - doesn’t mean that this has to be the case everyone else. I believe in a diversity of paths for the human experience. The reality is that I also returned to academia much later to pursue a degree in Social Work after spending time on the ground doing community organizing.
I carry the knowledge from these years with me and incorporate it into my work as a Clinical Social Worker and EMDR therapist. I consider this to be a point of relatability for clients - that I have experienced big transitions in life too, and have felt the internal and social pressures of those times.
Professionally, I participate in ongoing consultation to ensure that I’m in right relationship with varying levels of disclosure and am able to properly assess for transference and counter-transference. I balance right relationship with what a former consultant reminded me of, the significance of intersubjectivity/ relational connection common in feminist therapeutic approaches.
If clients are interested in other ways that I take care good care outside of session hours, they know that they can always ask.
Should you schedule a 15 minute consultation, please know that you are free to ask, too.
Be well…
