Mental Health
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Fear, Medication and Black Mental Health: A Physician’s View From the Front Lines
Since becoming a primary care physician over 20 years ago, I made the conscious choice to cement my career treating black and minority patients, primarily in underserved and indigent communities. This career arc spans from rural clinics treating migrant farm workers to predominately black, inner-city hospitals. And while the reports of the overmedication of America…
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Bilateral Stimulation While Black: How EMDR Transformed the Way I Processed My Childhood Trauma
I have tiny eyes. I’ve been playfully teased about them in a myriad of ways since I was a kid — from my big sister swearing I was dropped off by an Asian family (Whew, chillay, the problematic jokes of youth. And note, her nickname was “Chyna Doll” soooo … ) to people constantly asking…
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Taraji P. Henson to Testify Before Congressional Committee on Black Youth Suicide
On the day that her “Can We Talk” Mental Health Conference weekend (June 7-9) is set to kick off in Washington, D.C., actress Taraji P. Henson will testify before the newly formed Congressional Black Caucus Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide. Henson, who has proven herself a fierce mental health advocate, will address the group at…
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What Lies Beneath: Hypnotherapy Is Helping Me Get to the Bottom of My Depression
I’m afraid I’m going to fart in front of my therapist. Specifically, I’m afraid I’m going to fall asleep during therapy, and fart in my sleep (and don’t act like you never fart in your sleep, because you do). For all I know, I already have at some point during the past 10 months I’ve…
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Get Your Mind Right: A Guide to ‘New Age’ Therapies for Mental Wellness
There are a million ways for a girl to get her mind right. Some nights she might permit her waist to recklessly abandon it all on a dance floor. Some days it requires a flight to blue skies and even bluer waters (funds permitting). Many times, though, it happens in someone’s chair. A therapist’s. A…
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When Mental Illness Is Your Family Heirloom
You know that scene in My Cousin Vinny where Vinny’s girlfriend, Mona Lisa Vito, played by Marissa Tomei, testifies in court as an “expert witness” on cars? When opposing counsel condescendingly asks how a sweet little lady like herself—a hairdresser, even—could be an authority on automobiles, she replies, “My father was a mechanic. His father…
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Being Bipolar Means Always Having to Say, ‘Um…What’s Your Name Again?’
Charlie Sheen, who at one time was definitely a terrible person who also happens to struggle with mental illness and addiction, once said (and I paraphrase) that most people wouldn’t last very long in his head. While during the very manic time when he said these “tiger blood”-related things, Sheen was, again, a chaotic, awful…
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Taraji P. Henson Announces Two-Day 'Can We Talk?' Mental Health Summit
Actress Taraji P. Henson announced that her Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation (BLHF) will hold a two-day summit “to exchange ideas around normalizing the conversation of mental illness in the African-American community.” The first “Can We Talk?” Conference and Benefit Dinner will take place in Washington, D.C., on June 7-9, People reports. The Empire star, who…
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Common Opens Up About Being Molested as a Child and the 'Deep and Sudden Shame' He Felt
Shame thrives in silence. With every word spoken, every narrative reclaimed, sexual abuse victims and survivors have found a renewed power. In his new memoir, Let Love Have the Last Word, Common spoke about a topic that is often buried in silence amongst black men in the community — experiencing sexual assault. Trigger Warning: Please…
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Yoga Is My Self-Care: More Black Men Need to Breathe
As soon as I walk into my yoga studio in Brooklyn, I leave every societal hang-up on how black men are supposed to act and feel at the door. I can be free. I can be me, at peace with my mind and body. I exist unjudged by the people practicing with me because they,…