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English
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2020
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72
pages
English
Ebooks
2020
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Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
01 avril 2020
EAN13
9781684034161
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
01 avril 2020
EAN13
9781684034161
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
“As African Americans, we take pride in our strength to withstand the stress of everyday life coupled with racism and other forms of oppression. However, pushing through the pain and stress is literally killing us. Rheeda Walker has delivered a much-needed gift in The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health . Walker’s practical guide centers on the lives and experiences of Black people to identify, understand, and provide language for our experiences with mental distress and pathways to emotional well-being. It is rare that I would recommend a book to parents, families, and mental health professionals alike. However, this is one such book. Walker translates research and best practices into an engaging and culturally informed style. This is a must-read for anyone interested in embracing hope and living one’s best life.”
—Helen A. Neville, PhD , professor in the department of educational psychology and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“In engaging and accessible prose, Rheeda Walker has created a vivid and forceful account of the experience of—to use her phrasing—living while Black, and of the sources of the psychological fortitude needed to sustain and develop self, family, and community. The concept of psychological fortitude is key to her ideas, and I believe that readers will find the concept both profound and useful in day-to-day life.”
—Thomas Joiner, PhD , Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of psychology at Florida State University, and author of Mindlessness
“While we’re having a lot of conversations surrounding what’s behind the suicides of young Black people, rampant self-medicating, and the importance of practicing self-care, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health provides the actual, necessary tools to look out for your wellness. That insight is provided in a voice that our community—young or old, woman or man—can understand and embrace. Rheeda Walker’s work is right on time . ”
—Victoria Uwumarogie , deputy editor of the leading Black women’s lifestyle site, www.madamenoire.com
“The transparency, expertise, and compassion that Rheeda Walker uses to navigate readers through a space in the mental health industry that has gone ignored by society is going to create emotional freedom and growth for generations to come. This is a brilliant and life-changing read that everyone should put on the top of their priorities list.”
—Devi Brown , wellness expert, and author of Crystal Bliss
“In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health , Rheeda Walker not only provides an astute and revealing diagnosis of the pain and trauma we have suffered as Black people, but deftly guides us on a journey towards care and healing, rejuvenation, and self-affirmation. Walker demonstrates that Black mental and physical health is connected to a long history of racial terror, while reminding us that Black communities already have the cultural tools to achieve what she calls ‘psychological fortitude,’ our shield of protection and well-being. Using elegant language that easily switches between the conversational intimacy of a girlfriend, the knowing wisdom of an auntie, and the clinical experience of a professional, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health is also bolstered by historical examples and folk wisdom, popular culture references, and African proverbs. Walker has written a Black cultural tour de force; a robust and revelatory declaration that ‘our very own culture can save us.’”
—Jemima Pierre , associate professor of African American studies and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles; and author of The Predicament of Blackness
“In her groundbreaking book, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health , Rheeda Walker speaks directly to Black people: her book helps us to understand how racism, daily stress, and socioeconomic factors impact our daily lives. She places our experiences in the larger context of our culture and our African roots, so that we can embrace the power that is within us: our resilience and fortitude. In doing so, Walker gives us recommendations for change, whether it be getting the help we need, or learning how to bring about emotional well-being.”
—Lily D. McNair, PhD , clinical psychologist, and president of Tuskegee University
Publisher’s Note
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books
Copyright © 2020 by Rheeda Walker
New Harbinger Publications, Inc.
5674 Shattuck Avenue
Oakland, CA 94609
www.newharbinger.com
Cover design by Sara Christian
Acquired by Ryan Buresh
Edited by Gretel Hakanson
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file
To Momma,
who insisted we could do anything that we wanted to do in life.
To Daddy,
who said, “ If life gives you lemons , make lemonade . If at first you don’t succeed , keep suckin’ ’til you do suc - a - seed .”
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1: The Psychological Crisis Is Real: Let’s Fight for Our Sanity Together
Part I: Recognize Serious Threats to Emotional Health and Life
Chapter 2: What You Can Do If Death Seems Like the Best End to Pain
Chapter 3: Poor Diet, Neglected Health, Addiction, and Low-key Suicide
Chapter 4: The Anxiety and Depression Beneath It All
Chapter 5: Racism Is Bad for You
Chapter 6: Assimilating and Internalizing Racism
Part II: Reclaim Your Mind to Reclaim a Life Worth Living
Chapter 7: Exploring and Expanding Meaningful Blackness
Chapter 8: Making the Most of Your Spiritual Resourcefulness
Chapter 9: Being Genuine About Needing Help Makes Getting Help Possible
Chapter 10: How to Make “Therapy” Work, When You Need It
Chapter 11: Apply New and Improved Tools to Overcome Stress
Chapter 12: Claiming Your Truths Makes Change Possible
Acknowledgments
Foreword
There are probably hundreds of “unapologetic guides for white mental health.” Though they are not likely to be so titled, the content of these publications betrays the implied idea that mental health is the same, regardless of race. This book boldly and courageously challenges that assumption and speaks directly to Black people about unique issues that affect their mental health.
Reading this book is like being a Black person living in Minnesota or Rhode Island and suddenly awakening one spring morning and finding yourself on Peachtree Street in Atlanta with all the amenities of Black life and culture. In fact, the book is so engrossing that when I received a prepublication draft of it several weeks ago, I expected to use my old professorial skills of quickly skimming the manuscript for basic overview of its content and general direction, as I had done for thousands of student papers for several decades, but got trapped.
I started reading it, and skimming was not enough. Before I realized it, I had read the entire book, word for word, and enjoyed every minute of it. It was like sitting on the front porch drinking sweet tea with multiple generations of family/friends (with ambiguous lines separating the two) talking about mental stuff and handling life problems that we all knew were important but didn’t have the words to say what needed to be said.
Rheeda Walker’s “guide” is informative, professional, practical, useful, helpful, inspirational, motivational, personal, comical, relevant, refreshing, sacred, soul-stirring, and exciting. Though Dr. Walker earned a PhD in clinical psychology from a prominent (predominantly white) university and is a tenured professor at a demographically similar university, she is clear about who she is. Without apology, she affirms her identity as an African American woman who is committed to making her field of study and expertise relevant to the unique needs of her sociocultural community. These “needs” are certainly colored and shaped by the racial experience of being Black and female in an American, Judeo-Christian, patriarchal society.
This thoroughly Black-on-Black, for-Black self-help guide to mental health and well-being has the audacity to be addressed to the unique “psychological fortitude” and resources of Black people. It doesn’t attempt to instruct others about Black people, but anyone who reads it will find such instruction because of its insightful analysis. It is primarily intended to instruct Black people about themselves.
As the title declares: It is an unapologetic guide for Black people to reclaim our mental health. It does not attempt to “normalize” Black people by distorting us as “simply” dark-skinned white people. It tackles the race and culture experience as both a poison and a healing potion for Black mental health. Rheeda Walker takes the radical approach of looking inside ourselves, our experience, our history, our culture, our Afrocaness for those strengths (fortitude) that have uniquely fed our still-unexplained survival, resilience, and even transformed evolutionary advancement as a consequence of overcoming odds that should have been lethal. She comfortably embraces the utility of evidence-based intervention while prominently invoking the “evidence of things not seen” as identifiable cause of otherwise inexplicable fortitude and transcendent capability.
The power that Dr. Walker demonstrates in this book is the power of embracing one’s bilingual and bicultural abilities, or what the scholar genius Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois characterized as “double-consciousn