Black Women's Mental Health: Balancing Strength and

Vulnerability

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 BLACK
WOMEN’S
MENTAL
HEALTH
BALANCING STRENGTH
AND VULNERABILITY

EDITED BY

STEPHANIE Y. EVANS, KANIKA BELL,

AND NSENGA K. BURTON
Black Women’s Mental Health cover art by Tariq Mix.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Evans, Stephanie Y., editor. | Bell, Kanika, [date]– editor. | Burton,
Nsenga K., [date]– editor.
Title: Black women’s mental health : balancing strength and vulnerability /
edited by Stephanie Y. Evans, Kanika Bell, and Nsenga K. Burton.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016035404 (print) | LCCN 2016051269 (ebook) | ISBN
9781438465814 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438465838 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women—Mental health. | African American women—Mental health.
Classification: LCC RC451.4.W6 B53 2017 (print) | LCC RC451.4.W6 (ebook) |
DDC 362.1089/96073—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035404

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to our mothers and daughters:

W. Annette Edmonds
Deborah Ann Bell
Zuri Assata Thomas
Beverly Agee Burton
Kai Agee Burton
 Contents

Foreword xi
Linda Goler Blount, President of Black Women’s Health Imperative

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Learning to BREATHE: Toward a Balanced Model

of Black Women’s Wellness 1
Stephanie Y. Evans, Kanika Bell, and Nsenga K. Burton

Part I
Balancing Vulnerability

Sisters on Sisters: Inner Peace from the Black Woman Mental

Health Professional Perspective 23
Kanika Bell

When the Bough Breaks: The StrongBlackWoman and the

Embodiment of Stress 43
Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Representations of Black Women’s Mental Illness in HTGAWM

and Being Mary Jane 57
Nsenga K. Burton

Selfies, Subtweets, & Suicide: Social Media as Mediator and

Agitator of Mental Health for Black Women 75
Joy Harden Bradford
viii Contents

Part II
Balancing Strength

From Worthless to Wellness: Self-Worth, Power, and Creative Survival

in Memoirs of Sexual Assault 89
Stephanie Y. Evans

The Travel Diaries: Excursions for Balance, Reflection, Healing,

and Empowerment 123
Kami J. Anderson

My Body Is a Vehicle: Narratives of Black Women Holistic

Leaders on Spiritual Development, Mental Healing, and
Body Nurturing 141
Rachel Panton

Black Women’s Sexuality and Relationships: Embracing Self-Love

through BREATHE-ing 161
Qiana M. Cutts

African American Mothers’ Parenting in the Midst of Violence

and Fear: Finding Meaning and Transcendence 183
Ruby Mendenhall, Loren Henderson, and Barbara M. Scott

Part III
Strategies for Balance

Black Feminist Therapy as a Wellness Tool 201

Lani V. Jones and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Looking Through the Window: Black Women’s Perspectives on

Mental Health and Self-Care 215
Maudry-Beverley Lashley, Vanessa Marshall, and
TyWanda McLaurin-Jones

Don’t Go Back to Sleep: Increasing Well-Being through

Contemplative Practice 231
Veta Goler
 Contents ix

Love Lessons: Black Women Teaching Black Girls to Love 245

Alero Afejuku, Sheila Flemming-Hunter, and Ayo Gathing

Transformative Mental Health for African American Women:

Health Policy Considerations 265
Daniel E. Dawes and Keisha Braithwaite Holden

Afterword 287
Diane R. Brown and Verna M. Keith

Contributors 289

Index 299
 Foreword

LINDA GOLER BLOUNT

Caring for myself is not self indulgent, it is self preservation, and that is
an act of political warfare.
—Audre Lorde

T his well-known and revered quote still gives me goose bumps every time
I read it. Audre Lorde captures Black women’s long and arduous history
of navigating marginalization and invisibility: to do it all, bear it all, often in
silence. Black women’s political acts of resisting and rejecting negative stereo-
types, sexism, and racism bear a heavy price. Lorde recognizes that our acts of
resistance through leadership, mothering, caregiving, nurturing and providing
for our families and communities, and ultimately “taking on the world” do
not come without health consequences. It is time to reexamine the deep, rich,
complex, and layered experiences in Black women’s lives that starts with our
own self-preservation. Lorde’s quote is the loud whisper that I hear in my work
to further the legacy of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, as we advance
the health and wellness of Black women beyond simply the documentation of
health disparities to developing concrete, actionable results.
Thirty years after the 1985 Heckler Report on Black and Minority
Health, and $200 billion of research and more than two thousand papers on
health disparities later, there has been little conclusive progress in improving
the health of Black women in this country. What we do know is that stress,
racism, and sexism are strong predictors of our quality of life and, ultimately,
life expectancy. We continue to suffer far more than our white counterparts
from every preventable and chronic disease in this country. When hard data

xi
xii Foreword

and research findings of disparities do not translate into well-designed programs

that improve our health, the message we receive is that we are the problem,
and that Black women’s lives are expendable.
But although the extant literature perpetuates the concept that Black
women’s lives are in a constant state of crisis and disease, there is much to
celebrate. At the Imperative, we believe that “Black women are inherently
strong, resilient, and passionate about their health, and not defined by obesity,
disease, or poverty.” Black women lead all women in participation in the labor
force; we have the largest voter turnout rates and represent the fastest-growing
segment of women-owned businesses. We not only matter, we continue to be
a major force moving this country forward.
Additionally, there are a reported 9.5 million Black women who are in
good health. That is an important figure: it means that despite constant threats
to our everyday existence, many of us have found ways to preserve our sense
of self, our freedom, and our health. Our goal at the Imperative is to translate
existing research about what works for Black women and to share stories of
success in ways that create a roadmap of achievable and accessible goals for
Black women on their journey to optimal health. Our primary mission is to
increase the number of healthy Black women in this country from 9.5 million
to 12.5 million by the year 2020.
At the Imperative, this work of self-preservation by Black women begins
with the creation of safe spaces where we can challenge and reject the social
structures that assault and threaten our existence and our ability to be seen.
It starts by reframing conversations that usually begin with Black women as
the problem, and instead celebrate and normalize our rich lives, our value,
and our worth.
This book, Black Women’s Mental Health: Balancing Strength and Vul-
nerability, is an important piece of that empowering process. It weaves the
influential work of Black female scholars in the field of mental health together
with personal narratives to advance the conversation about how Black women
can resist conventional thinking in order to strengthen and protect our mental
health. Disrupting assumptions of Black women’s emotional, spiritual, and
psychological landscapes by rejecting stereotypes that reduce us to either the
“Strong Black Woman” or the “angry victim,” this book explores the vast
nuances that lie between those constructed images. By unveiling personal stories
we have long kept to ourselves, and using both qualitative and quantitative
data, this book provides a unique opportunity to advance research on Black
women’s mental health by not just focusing on our vulnerabilities but also
our strengths.
 Foreword xiii

Part One offers chapters such as “When the Bough Breaks: The
StrongBlackWoman and the Embodiment of Stress” and “Representations of
Black Women’s Mental Illness in HTGAWM and Being Mary-Jane.” This sec-
tion helps us all reevaluate our relationships with the “Strong Black Woman”
and the “Superwoman,” myths that are known for an unprecedented and
unrealistic level of perseverance and endurance. We are allowed to have deep
conversations with the Strong Black Woman we all grapple with, recognizing
her historical value and sacrifice to move us forward, while also exploring ways
in which we can love her, nurture her, and put her to rest. This section helps
us look beyond characteristics of endurance, perseverance, and self-sacrifice as
our only barometers of value and success.
Part Two and Part Three of the book identify some of the diverse experi-
ences and narratives of Black women to achieve mind, body, and spirit wellness.
From chapters addressing self-love, such as “Love Lessons: Black Women Teach-
ing Black Girls to Love,” to chapters about self-care such as “From Worthless
to Wellness: Self-Worth, Power, and Creative Survival in Memoirs of Sexual
Assault” and “Transformative Mental Health for African American Women:
Health Policy Considerations,” these sections unearth multifaceted approaches
to reexamining and expanding our sources of strength.
When evaluating the status of our mental health, Western psychology
and theoretical approaches are limited in their ability to address the complex
realities and daily experiences of Black women’s lives in the United States.
This book deepens our understanding of the unique struggles Black women
experience by illuminating the unseen realities of the pain and suffering that
Black women are conditioned to ignore.
A reality of our lives is that we disproportionately suffer from prevent-
able health conditions. It also means that we are more likely to be caregivers
for our sick loved ones and experience the premature deaths of our children,
mothers, husbands, sisters, and brothers. Arguably, we experience trauma and
grief far more than our white counterparts. The daily reality of sexism and
racism can be enough to make anyone come unglued, and yet our grief and
trauma often remain unaddressed by ourselves, our communities, and our
mental health providers. The life challenges that we face on a daily basis can
become a torrent of stress that ages or “weathers” us prematurely. On average,
our cortisol levels are higher than those of White women, triggering our bod-
ies’ inflammatory response. The ongoing stressors that we manage over time
have been linked to many poor health outcomes, such as obesity, heart disease,
and infant mortality, just to name a few. The idea that “Black don’t crack” is
losing its long-standing credibility. While we may “fake it ‘til we make it,” by
xiv Foreword

the time we’re sixty, our bodies have aged five to seven years faster than those
of our white counterparts.
The inconvenient truth is that we can no longer take passive approaches
to meeting our mental health needs. The heart of this book addresses what it
means to find peace and sovereignty as a Black woman; it introduces a nuanced
and much-needed expanded holistic view of our lived realities by examining
our social, emotional, political, physical, spiritual, and financial health, in order
to fully consider and strengthen our overall well-being.
We know that Black women are often underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed
within our mental health system, and remain at an increased risk for mental
health problems and psychological distress. We are challenged by the myths
that “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” “there is nothing we can’t handle,”
“therapy is only for the rich and those who have time,” or that we can “pray
it away.” Additionally, Black women who do seek therapy often struggle with
limited insurance coverage or a shortage of culturally accessible and appropriate
services that meet our unique needs.
Delving into hundreds of interviews and primary data sets, this book
places the experiences of Black women—both our failures and our triumphs—
at the center of our quest for answers. We are allowed to explore and find
value and healing in our own lived experiences. In this book, we become the
experts and provide solutions to our own problems. And in that vein, this
book speaks not only to Black women but also educates a broader audience
of policymakers and therapists about the complex and multilayered realities
that we must navigate and the protests we must mount on our journey to
find inner peace and optimal health.
Ultimately, Black women’s discoveries of unique paths to wellness require
profound courage, strength, and vulnerability; as Audre Lorde might agree,
those paths are a vital step toward self-preservation that is, at heart, an act of
resistance and a radically political act.
 Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Tariq Mix and TMixStudios.com for Black
Women’s Mental Health: Balancing Strength and Vulnerability cover art.

Dr. Stephanie Evans would like to thank the co-editors Dr. Bell and Dr. Bur-
ton who were true partners in bringing this monumental work to fruition. She
offers a special thank you to the authors who contributed chapters for bringing
their “best selves” to the project for the betterment of others. The process of
collaborative wellness—especially the spa visits for editing parties—modeled a
sisterhood that is definitely a “best practice” for academic writing. She would
like to thank the Association for the Study of African American Life and
History and Association of Black Women Historians for providing countless
mentors in her pursuit to continue to expand studies of Black women’s intel-
lectual history. Specifically, she thanks Dr. Sheila Flemming-Hunter for being
a mentor for two decades as well as members of the Clark Atlanta University
and Atlanta University Center community for offering much stimulation and
inspiration. She also extends heartfelt appreciation to Linda Goler Blount,
president & CEO of Black Women’s Health Imperative for advocating and
supporting millions of women on our quest for wellness. Thanks also to Valerie
Boyd, for lending a helpful ear and guiding early discussion confirming the
value of this work. Lastly, Dr. Evans thanks Dr. Curtis Byrd, for being both
husband and best friend.

Dr. Kanika Bell would like to thank the Black women mental health workers
who participated in her study; those who fight to reduce the struggles faced by
Black women, while facing these very same struggles. She wishes to give special
recognition to the outstanding team at A.T.L. Psychotherapy & Consulting
Services, LLC, for supporting this movement toward optimal mental health
for Black women. She would like to personally thank her academic, personal,

xv
xvi Acknowledgments

and clinical mentors, including but not limited to: Dr. Adrienne Bradford, Dr.
Sigrid Elston, and Dr. Daniel Black for their continual pressing to ensure her
voice was heard across genres.

Dr. Nsenga Burton would like to thank my close friends and family for their
support during the writing and editing of this book. A special thanks to my
parents Beverly Burton, Earl Burton, sisters Bamidele Alexander and Bolade
Burton, grandmother Shirley Mae Burton, daughter Kai and colleagues Dr.
Stephanie Evans and Dr. Kanika Bell. Thank you to mentors and sister friends
Valerie Boyd, Dr. Beretta Smith Shomade, Dr. Nyasha Grayman-Simpson, Dr.
Dorothy Cowser Yancy, Dr. Anna Everett, Dr. Patricia de Souza, Tina Rasheed,
and Philana Patterson for their guidance, support, uplift and advice. A very
special thanks to Mara Brock Akil, creator and showrunner of Being Mary Jane,
for her invaluable input on the subject. Thank you to SUNY Press for believ-
ing in this much-needed project. Much appreciation goes to Goucher College
which provided sabbatical resources, UGA’s Grady College of Journalism for
additional support, and Clark Atlanta University for offering an amazing space
to work with colleagues in a location steeped in Black intellectual thought,
culture, and production. Thank you to the dynamic Black women on this
journey with us which is often precarious but always worth it.
 INTRODUCTION

Learning to BREATHE
Toward a Balanced Model of Black Women’s Wellness

STEPHANIE Y. EVANS, KANIKA BELL,

AND NSENGA K. BURTON

All through God’s universe we see eternal harmony and symmetry as the
unvarying result of the equilibrium of opposing forces.
—Anna Julia Cooper (1892)

I n the late nineteenth century, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper chronicled Black
women’s status in American society:

The colored woman of to-day occupies, one may say, a unique posi-
tion in this country. In a period of itself transitional and unsettled,
her status seems one of the least ascertainable and definitive of
all the forces which make for our civilization. She is confronted
by both a woman question and a race problem, and is as yet an
unknown or an unacknowledged factor in both. (“Status of Women
in America,” 1892)

Like her contemporary, scholar-activist W. E. B. Du Bois, Cooper acknowl-

edged a peculiar mental state—which Du Bois dubbed “double conscious-
ness”—the sense of viewing oneself through dual lenses of Black and White.

1
2 Stephanie Y. Evans, Kanika Bell, and Nsenga K. Burton

However, Black women’s self-consciousness is beyond “double” because it is

constructed at the intersection of “the woman question and the race problem.”
In addition to other characteristics of identity such as class, ethnicity, religion,
and sexuality, along with experiences as a result of her historic position within
the United States, Black women’s healthy identity formation is indeed complex.
Since Cooper’s time, Black women have certainly moved beyond the status of
unknown or unacknowledged, yet much more work must be done to expand
the impact of Black women’s voices in our own lives.
Black women have continued to write about this “unique position” into
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and this collection is a continuation
of that discussion. Authors in this edited volume seek to provide pathways to
improve Black women’s mental health by acknowledging the many positions
we hold that contribute to our need for balance—particularly to balance the
opposing forces of strength and vulnerability.
This collection is mainly written by and about those who self-define as
Black women. As with the thirteen guiding principles defined by the Black
Lives Matter founding manifesto, we unapologetically recognize Black women’s
issues broadly to include diversity, queer and transgender affirmation, families
and communities, intergenerational and global perspectives, and an unwavering
commitment to restorative justice.1

Balancing Strength and Vulnerability

Black Women’s Mental Health: Balancing Strength and Vulnerability offers a toolkit
of resources for conceiving Black women’s self-consciousness, self-concept, and
self-definition in ways that defy fragmented caricatures of fear, anxiety, inad-
equacy on one hand or, at the other extreme, the StrongBlackWoman myth
(as coined by Chanequa Walker-Barnes). Unhealthy images are presented, rep-
resented, and internalized and inadequate models are developed and reflected
in history and education, media and culture, policy and politics. As shown
in several chapters, culturally appropriate counseling requires using culturally
appropriate models of mental health. The chapters presented here each represent
a step toward improving Black women’s development of self-concept, enhancing
practitioner professional development, and shifting health policies to reduce
disparities in quality and quantity of mental health service. These improvements
must be fueled by updated research that presents approaches and solutions
grounded in an interdisciplinary understanding of Black women’s lives.
Though Black women in the United States are not a monolith, two con-
trolling narratives have emerged: the strong Black woman super human, and
 Introduction 3

the angry Black woman victim. Each of these images contains seeds of truth.
Black women are strong; we have had to be strong to bear hundreds of years
of enslavement and produce—literally—generations of workers, thinkers, artists,
and freedom fighters despite evolving oppression. Black women also are angry
victims: there is much in the world to be angry about given the human and
civil rights violations we are subjected to—we have been victimized and we are
as vulnerable as any other living being, fragile and finite. Indeed, as intimated by
Ruth King, rage is a necessary part of our healing in the quest for inner peace.
Black Women’s Mental Health creates a framework to positively impact
Black women’s mental health and wellness. As editors, we bring together schol-
ars based on the expressed need in mental health assessment and practice. Our
“BREATHE” model values characteristics of both strength and vulnerability.
Explicitly building on the groundbreaking book, In and Out of Our Right
Minds: The Mental Health of African American Women (Brown & Keith, 2003),
this book foregrounds balancing the two narratives, and acknowledges grains
of truth in each pole. Yet, we also provide research and recommendations that
address the excessive social inequities that damage Black women’s mental well-
ness and overall health. This model also honors activist traditions by “talking
back” to oppressive forces that would stifle our ability to breathe while Black.
As a collective—Dr. Evans, a professor of Black women’s memoir and
intellectual history, Dr. Bell, a psychology professor and psychologist, and Dr.
Burton, a media scholar—we team up to survey historical and contemporary
Black women’s narratives of health and freedom. Here, we present a chorus of
interdisciplinary voices that exchange perspectives on race, gender, and wellness.
This collaborative project enhances humanities, social sciences, professional,
and policy work. This book brings together wellness workers who build on
a longstanding history of creative approaches to improving Black women’s
mental health. The dialogical approach sets a stage to traverse across bridges
that unite academic disciplines and community agencies. Thus, the BREATHE
model created by the editors and the chapters that invoke the model emerge
from a broad range of experience, practice, research, and dialogue among and
between sisters.

Learning How to BREATHE:

Toward a Model for Black Women’s Mental Health

Since the critically acclaimed novel by Terry McMillan (1992), and the adapted
screenplay, the notion of Waiting to Exhale has been synonymous with African
American women’s quest for inner peace and happiness. The film explored
4 Stephanie Y. Evans, Kanika Bell, and Nsenga K. Burton

multilayered themes of race and gender and provided a glimpse into the pres-
sures of being a Black woman in America. In one part of the film, Savannah,
played by the late, great Whitney Houston, talks about how long she yearned
to feel the arms of a man around her, creating a feeling of safety and security
and love. While dancing with a man with whom she has reconnected, Savan-
nah narrates that as she exhales, she metaphorically releases her inhibitions, her
anxieties, her apprehensions, and allows herself to breathe. Though this movie
was primarily geared toward exposing the difficulties of romantic relationships
involving cisgender Black women, the movie, and particularly that moment,
was a powerful representation of Black women’s health. The modern Black
woman just wants to breathe . . . get some air . . . release . . . refresh and
feel anew . . . love . . . and be loved . . . and she does not want to be made
to feel guilty about it.
As multifaceted and complex as the characters were in McMillan’s work,
their desires were quite simple. They wanted more time to enjoy life. They
wanted successful careers but did not want to sacrifice family for them. They
wanted to be healed. They wanted to be forgiven. They wanted to reclaim the
power they understood was part of their lineage and legacy. They wanted peace.
Continuing with the metaphor of exhaling, this text seeks to provide breath
or life force to women who have been crippled under the weight of stress,
depression, anxiety, abuse, trauma, and oppression. Rejecting notions that Black
women must choose one of their central identities (i.e., Black or female), the
authors in this text have collectively adopted an unapologetically womanist
framework. This is a book by, about, and for Black women. The BREATHE
model is presented as a set of principles by which one can engage the process
of restoration and lifestyle change as well as increase one’s understanding of
Black women’s mental health. The BREATHE model is defined as follows:

B—Balance
R—Reflection
E—Energy
A—Association
T—Transparency
H—Healing
E—Empowerment

Balance—Engage in the purposeful repositioning of one’s commitments

such that all priorities are addressed

When asked what it is like to be a Black woman in modern society, one might
simply respond “exhausting.” Juggling multiple roles such as caretaker, provider,
 Introduction 5

career woman, wife, confidant, activist, and mother is no small order. Though
many Black women take pride in the practice of having many irons in the fire,
a common theme is the desire to have balance among all of their priorities. For
too many Black women, self-care is the last item on a seemingly endless to-do
list. This lack of balance carries real and devastating consequences, including
the degradation of one’s mental health. As shown in Kanika Bell’s chapter
that surveys fifty Black women mental health scholars and professionals, this
model directs the Black woman toward a status of psychological homeostasis
to increase possibilities for social equilibrium, where all facets of the self are
honored without increasing stress. Conflict is inevitable; balance comes from
purposeful conflict management.

Reflection—Set aside time for contemplation and performing emotional

and cognitive audits

Reflection is a critical method in mental health treatment. Meditation is a

more intense derivative of the act of reflection and can promote physical and
psychological health. For those who find meditation challenging, just taking the
time to seriously contemplate and review one’s life, priorities, and decisions can
be incredibly useful. It allows one to determine which thoughts and emotional
patterns are no longer healthy and need to be shed. It is important to note
that though self-correction may occur, this is not meant to be an exercise in
self-degradation or abuse. Instead, reflection is a time to reconnect with the
self to determine next steps toward health and wellness. As Anna Julia Cooper
wrote in “Womanhood: Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a
Race” (1892), reflection is one moment in time that looks in three directions:
reflection looks backward for wisdom, looks inward for strength, and looks
forward in hope and faith.

Energy—Reinvigorate goals and set upon a path toward achieving them

Black women are notorious for being (as Fannie Lou Hamer aptly stated), sick
and tired of being sick and tired. Finding motivation is no small task when
consistently feeling overwhelmed, as Nsenga Burton unpacks in her chapter
of mental health in Being Mary Jane and How to Get Away with Murder. Set-
ting small and specific goals that are easily achieved can produce feelings of
“winning,” which will inspire movement toward the larger goals on one’s list.
Energy is maintained via affirmation. Black women must not just acknowledge,
but celebrate their own hard work and efforts to minimize the energy-depleting
impact of negative evaluation. Once this pattern of “wins” is established, inner
peace is easier to attain and sustain.
6 Stephanie Y. Evans, Kanika Bell, and Nsenga K. Burton

Association—Create and maintain social networks that promote, affirm, and

encourage wellness

“Sister circles” have been empirically shown (e.g., Neal-Barnett et al., 2011;
Porter & Gaston, 2003; Bell, 2015) to be a meaningful and relevant inter-
vention strategy for Black women’s mental health challenges. Whether it is
via traditional therapeutic support groups or the kin-by-design friendships
among Black women, the ability to communicate and share experiences with
like-minded individuals can be a powerful prevention strategy when consider-
ing Black women’s mental health challenges. Social associations negate feelings
of isolation and provide an outlet for a population that routinely feels misun-
derstood. In Multiple Intelligences, Howard Gardner posits that intrapersonal
and interpersonal self-development are mutually reinforcing, so the healthy
individual grows inextricably within historical and cultural group contexts.

Transparency—Actively avoid remaining silent about painful experiences

Truth and vulnerability are key components to a model of mental health.

One cannot fix a problem without exposing it. This endeavor seeks to reject
the culture of stigma and shame attached to mental illness and treatment by
encouraging Black women to be vocal about their experiences and share stories
of recovery. Balancing strength and vulnerability requires that we pay special
attention to our vulnerabilities so we may raise our voices to articulate clearly
our needs.

Healing—Look for ways to nurture wellness in self and others

Before her death in 2006, author Bebe Moore Campbell vulnerably addressed
the issue of mental illness among Black women in her novel 72 Hour Hold.
Though a fictional tale of one woman’s quest to seek healing for her daughter’s
psychiatric ailments, the novel was based upon her own daughter’s struggle
with bipolar disorder. In her honor, we recognize July as National Minority
Mental Health Month, which is a time to call attention to the Black female
community’s need for healing. The term healing is purposefully chosen as a
component of the proposed model because “health” cannot occur without it.
Health is not something one has or does not have; it is a constantly evolving
process. Black women are in a perpetual state of healing from the specific
experiences of trauma such as abuse and degradation as well as from the global
experiences of racism, sexism, and economic disenfranchisement.
 Introduction 7

Empowerment—Enlist one’s own agency by accessing internal power sources

and taking ownership of one’s own wellness

Iyanla Vanzant’s first published work, Tapping the Power Within: A Path to
Self-Empowerment for Black Women (1992), was one of the first widely accepted
texts that allowed and encouraged Black women to connect with spirit and
begin the healing process from the inside out. Vanzant did not just describe the
Black women’s experience, she created a handbook with actual suggestions for
how to take back one’s life and utilize one’s own agency to create inner peace.
She translated the notion of empowerment. Instead of solely offering schol-
arly critique and sociological outlines of the marginalization of Black women’s
mental health, the goal here is to guide Black women toward empowerment
and the reclamation of authority over their own well-being.

Writing Balance: Book Outline in Three Sections

In Black Women’s Mental Health, more than a dozen scholars share personal
reflections and strategies for transforming self and society. Benefiting from a
legacy of Black women’s social action and grounded in cutting-edge holistic
approaches, womanist praxis, and Black feminist thought, this edited volume
is both a culmination of past practices and a launching point for new direc-
tions. This book proposes an interdisciplinary model of positive psychology,
humanities, media studies, and policy. While issues pertinent to elder and
adult women are essential areas addressed in this work, the authors also pay
special attention to adolescent development to connect young women to tools
necessary to navigate twenty-first century challenges.
The chapters invited for this volume clearly establish the utility of the
BREATHE model and begin a long-overdue, culturally appropriate, solu-
tions-based dialogue. Excerpts from chapters demonstrate how authors under-
stand Black women’s “unique position” and each contributes a vital element
to the chemistry involved in creating an environment where Black women
can thrive.
Bell surveys fifty Black women mental health practitioners for profes-
sional perspectives on particular pathways to balance. Anderson demonstrates
reflexive research as both methodology and theoretical frame and shows travel
writing as means of self-care, while Goler reflects on lessons learned from years
of retreats at Spelman College and shapes a model to reform our experiences
and perceptions. Panton excavates three women’s narratives to share how life