Holistic Resources

Women of Color and Alternative Mental Health Therapies

A growing number of women of color are seeking alternative mental health services to help cope with stress and other recurrent struggles in their lives more effectively. Many of these women are now utilizing hypnotherapy, breathwork, and reiki as means of effective therapeutic intervention minus psychiatric labels and medications.

One of them is "Maya," a 36 year-old African American woman. Among many things, Maya is a single mom of two pre-teens, and a lawyer. In the past, Maya sought treatment from a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). She had been an incest survivor since age 8 and experienced recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, and anxiety attacks. Maya also had difficulty maintaining relationships with men as a result of her childhood trauma. Years of intensive talk therapy and anti-anxiety medication led Maya to see very little improvement in her recovery, until a friend recommended that she try hypnotherapy.

Maya says, "At first, I was skeptical about hypnosis and what it could do for me. But I was frustrated. I felt like I was hitting a wall with my therapist and that she didn't really understand where I was coming from. This had been the eighth therapist I had been to, and I was beginning to feel like talking about my symptoms and my past was beating a dead horse. When was I going to get over it? I just wanted to feel better and stop the panic attacks. . . "

» read more | 7 comments | email this story | 1439 reads

Visit our sponsors

culturekitchens

The Publisher
Liza Sabater

Daily servings of political dissent
culturekitchen

Grassroots News and
Activism for New Yorkers
Daily Gotham

Feminist Bloggers
Network
BlogSheroes

A new kind of vouyerism
Voogling

Art + Code + Philosophy
Potatoland.blog

Got any dirt, tips, leads or money for us? Then drop us a line or two at editors [at] culturekitchen [dot] com or use our general contact form to reach everybody in the editorial team ASAP.

Words to live by

But, when it came down to, this case was made into a racial issue, which it shouldn't have been. It should have been an issue about a woman who was raped by three men. Case closed.

The fact that she was black and they were white only plays into the fetishization of Black women and white men that has developed through years of inequal treatment. This also biased many people because it made this case into a national spectacle. It split people along racial lines instead of factual lines and investigating the story that the woman told instead of going on a witch hunt.

Additionally, this case was turned into an issue of class as well. The Black, poor woman was raped by the rich white kids. Many wanted to see these men be charged because they felt it would put them in their rightful place, strip them of the privilege that they had been so accustomed to all of their lives.

All of the things that this case stood for are all of the things that were wrong with the media's coverage of the case, the national obsession with the case, and the prosecution of the case. It became an issue of stripping privilege and proving that white people were not superior instead of ensuring that this woman was actually treated properly and had her CORRECT assailants brought to justice, not for political reasons but for criminal reasons.

— From Ace Solylent's comment over at The Smoking Gun publishes Duke Lacrosse accuser's photograph