“People are like plants in the wind; they bow down and rise up again.”
(A Malagasy Proverb on ‘Resilience’)
I am a counselor to those who counsel others.
Clergy guide their parishioners through their deepest personal and spiritual pain, while at the same time having to cope with their own pain.
I provide much needed support to clergy who, at times, find themselves overwhelmed by the emotional requirements of pastoral ministry. Stress and depression are prevailing themes in my work with clergy – reconciling the tension between public performance and private pain. I founded HULDAH to help meet this enormous need. My book, Depression in African American Clergy, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), also speaks to this need. It is considered the first scholarly work on depression in African American clergy.
In addition to my specialization with clergy, I have over twenty-five years of counseling experience in a variety of mental health settings as a social worker, chaplain, pastor, counselor, professor and psychotherapist. I am clinically trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy, marriage and family theory, and spiritually-based counseling. My therapeutic style is conversational and my approach is holistic, meaning that I draw from several modes of counseling to integrate spirituality, psychology, and socio-cultural context into my practice.