Therapy for Black Girls celebrated its seventh anniversary on April 12 by presenting the first-ever live show of its award-winning podcast at the Variety Playhouse. Created by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist based in Atlanta, the online space aims to encourage the mental wellness of Black girls and women by having conversations about mental health and connecting them with therapists in their area.
The live show brought many of the podcast’s loyal listeners face-to-face for the first time, who usually listen to the show while they commute to work, cook dinner or do other tasks. Bradford said many of her listeners had been asking for an in-person event, so she was excited for everyone to get the opportunity to connect.
“It’s funny because I started recording the podcast in my closet … so it’s just wild to know that something you started in a room in your home could become this thing that impacts thousands of people every week.”
Much of Bradford’s focus is on making mental health topics more relevant and accessible. The “Healing in Real Time” event included a panel that discussed what it looks like to heal in real time, the impact of going viral, setting boundaries, self-awareness and oversharing on social media. Dr. Ayanna Abrams and Dr. Joy D. Beckwith, two licensed clinical psychologists based in Atlanta, joined Bradford during the event’s panel to give insight into balancing wellness with being active on social media, especially within your relationship circles.
The event was an acknowledgment that the scope of therapy has shifted in the past few years. The evolution of social media has created platforms that have increased information and access to mental health resources for users. The COVID-19 pandemic widened that scope with the increased use of teletherapy, pushing online therapy to the forefront.
“I think social media has given people an opportunity to get to know psychological concepts that maybe they had never heard of. It has given people access to different kinds of therapists, and the different kinds of ways that we practice,” Bradford said. “People who did not even imagine that you could talk with a therapist about a particular topic, I think social media has made it so that you realize there really isn’t anything that you can’t talk to your therapist about. In a lot of ways, it has decreased the stigma related to mental health, where people are sharing their experiences with therapy.”
But Bradford cautioned people to ensure that while following various healing pages and therapists, they don’t start to pick themselves apart in criticism. She also urged people to be careful when using terminology that may not accurately describe their experiences, noting that some terms embedded in psychology have taken on an inaccurate meaning.
Bradford said she started the podcast because she saw a lack of information related to the way Black women could take care of themselves when it came to mental health. By the show’s end, she hoped people could carry the conversations away from the live show and into their personal lives which would encourage others to discover Therapy for Black Girls.
“I hope people will take away tangible strategies for how they protect themselves in online spaces, and also a different understanding of how we can extend grace to other people, because that’s the other thing that I often see online. We forget that the people we are interacting with are not just little squares on our phones. These are actual people with actual feelings… so it’s important to give grace and extend compassion to one another.”
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