Episode 8
8: Healing Approaches for Underserved Communities with Jacqui Johnson
Let's talk about bridging the gap in black mental health access!
Meet Jacqui Johnson, the visionary force behind Sankofa Healing Studio, who is reshaping the landscape of mental health access and dismantling oppression within therapeutic spaces. With a passion for bridging the Black mental health gap, Jacqui's holistic approach combines art, play, storytelling, hip-hop, and evidence-based modalities to create a transformative healing experience.
As an educator, Jacqui's influence extends far beyond the therapy room. She lectures widely, provides supervision and consultation, and leads international initiatives that increase training accessibility for Therapists of Color. Her expertise in trauma-responsive care and gender considerations informs her work, confronting the complex intersections of adverse childhood experiences, race, community violence, and the justice system.
Jacqui's commitment to justice is exemplified in her groundbreaking work with individuals within the criminal justice system. At the Philadelphia county jail, she facilitates trauma-responsive art therapy groups for women and incarcerated youth, addressing the unique challenges they face. By reclaiming the past, she empowers individuals to protect their future and transform their present circumstances.
But Jacqui's expertise doesn't stop there. She is a certified Kemetic Yoga instructor, an Adjunct Professor, and an Emotional Emancipation Circle Leader. Her skill set spans a wide range of therapeutic modalities, including intensive sessions, perinatal mental health, child trauma, play therapy, Hip-Hop therapy, advanced EMDR interventions, brainspotting, use of healing crystals, sound and energy healing, and Reiki.
With limited therapy slots available, Jacqui invites you to inquire about rates and embark on a transformative journey of healing, growth, and self-discovery. Don't miss the opportunity to work with a true trailblazer in the field of mental health.
Jacqui Johnson, the founder and clinical director of Sankofa Healing Studio, shares her background, expertise, and approach to providing trauma-responsive care to underserved communities, with a focus on bridging the Black mental health access gap.
Want to know how you can begin your journey to hope and healing? Visit Elevated Life Academy for classes and free resources for personal development and healing.
Resources
Transcript
[00:01:37] She goes with she, her, and hers pronouns. And Jacqui's a somatic social justice art and play therapist. And she prioritizes the need to bridge the Black mental health access gap while upending oppression with healing spaces. Her advanced training in multiple evidence based modalities informs her unique holistic style blending art, play, storytelling, hip hop, brain spotting, EMDR, and energy based practices.
[:[00:02:31] This belief is what led her to work within the criminal justice system. She developed and facilitates trauma responsive art therapy groups at the Philadelphia County Jail for Women and Incarcerated Youth, addressing the challenges that individuals with trauma compounded by incarceration, face.
[:[00:03:00] Jacqui Johnson: Thank you for having me.
[:[00:03:06] Cherie Lindberg: No, it's wonderful. I think to put it in writing so that you realize, all the impacts, the different ways you are serving your community and the populations you serve. I'm excited to have you here Every time you and I get together, I learn more. I appreciate you being available today for us to kind of unpack some of this
[:[00:03:27] Cherie Lindberg: So, why don't you start describing how the healing studio came to be and some of those services, that you talked about in your bio.
[:[00:03:54] Sankofa is very near and dear to me It's from the Akan people. And it's also in a dinker symbol. And what it really symbolizes is not to be afraid to go back and get what was lost. It's that and for me with Sankofa healing studio this idea of going back and getting what's lost.
[:[00:04:41] But a lot of times it's because we have to go back and dig up some of the stuff for those old skeletons and that we don't necessarily want to, that we're afraid to. And so, so that's the word Sankofa. But healing is, we talk about academic words, psychotherapy and all those other things, but it's just healing.
[:[00:05:18] Whereas, this place that we can connect to both pain and joy and past and future and today in ways that allow us to feel better. So that's kind of just breaking down the name in and of itself. So, just that history there. And why, why was that so important for me?
[:[00:05:56] I'm not given many options. if it doesn't feel good, oftentimes in the field that I myself had experienced at a younger age is, well, there's something wrong with me. Rather than like, yeah, this, I don't connect to this person. It's more of wanting to analyze what's wrong with me why I don't connect because they're the expert in the room and they're a therapist, so you should connect. So a lot of that really drove what I was doing within my own practice with him now with me in the field of what needed to be different.
[:[00:06:57] So you have that pushback, especially within a treatment model that is aimed at fixing me instead of understanding me. But those are the things that drive me, that authentic attunement, right? Being able to be in the moments and just be a presence for someone in your life that's looking for that.
[:[00:07:36] Jacqui Johnson: Absolutely, right? So when we think about studios, and we actually have multiple studios here. I have an art therapy studio where there's a room of a bunch of art stuff. I have a yoga studio that's very specific to yoga and some of the other holistic practices like Reiki and sound healing.
[:[00:08:08] Cherie Lindberg: And for whatever that person needs in that moment in time. So then you have these rooms that they can go in and get a need met.
[:[00:08:15] Cherie Lindberg: Yeah. That makes sense.
[:[00:08:29] Cherie Lindberg: Can you talk about how you're serving underserved communities? That's such an important topic.
[:[00:08:53] So in speaking about that I'm a community based therapist. So the work that I do is community based. So not just like, Oh, I work with the community, but no, I'm in the community. I'm not in the office waiting for folks to knock on a door or call.
[:[00:09:19] But if I have anxiety that I'm dealing with or depression, the likelihood of me being able to get up on time in the morning and deal with some of the demands of work may be really challenged. I may not be able to keep that job and we don't have those conversations. So to be able to show up with my team to make sure that people are checking their mental health and saying like, Hey, we're here.
[:[00:10:16] Like really people who are struggling but wouldn't have gone to a therapist but to be present and normalize it not just talking about we'll take a deep breath, but what does it feel like to have the joy and smile of bubbles, which we know therapeutic is also a controlled breathing, right?
[:[00:11:15] I want to go upstream and see why they're falling in. And one of the ways I do that is actually going into the jails. Folks that are in the jail aren't there just because they decided to commit crimes. Oftentimes, and I haven't met one yet, have had some traumatic childhoods.
[:[00:11:55] And they wind up in these really difficult situations where they have been harmed and maybe now they have harmed others. But they still need space to be held for them as well.
[:[00:12:24] Jacqui Johnson: That part. I look at the field with four very specific columns. People need to be seen, heard, feel validated and feel protected, and under protected is, feeling loved, protected, safe. Even if you don't have the right words, it's just your presence and nonjudgmental approach that gives hope to people. There are times that there's not enough attention given to just being present. And, and again, being not nonjudgmental.
[:[00:13:06] However, if I hold space for folks who just tell me what happened to you and tell me about your dreams. That opens up a dialogue in a very different way. So I think that is that crux of serving underserved because underserved are also the ones who are oppressed.
[:[00:13:26] Jacqui Johnson: Yeah. And even with that going further than trauma informed, but trauma responsive. Like, what am I going to do about it as a provider? What is our responsibility to truly be trauma responsive not just be aware there's trauma, but how do we go about it knowing that all these other layers are present as well.
[:[00:13:53] Jacqui Johnson: Yeah, your intention does not necessarily match your impact. And as providers, we need to focus on impacts.
[:[00:14:13] Cherie Lindberg: So explain more about your integrative approaches. I'm particularly interested in hearing more about this hip hop stuff that you do. How do you integrate?
[:[00:15:10] It's this very culturally rooted expression, and it allows people to give their powerful full narrative So when we're thinking about narrative therapy, being able to tell my story. So hip hop isn't just the music, it's a culture.
[:[00:16:04] thing. And I have gone to other parts of the world really think, supporting my colleagues around hip hop and what that looks like and what that means on a global perspective. It is also very important that there isn't cultural appropriation as well. So it's not as simple as like, let's bring a hip hop song in because this person likes hip hop. Let's just play the music. It's so much more.
[:[00:16:39] Jacqui Johnson: So I'm a somatic social justice. . And I say kind of art therapy plus. It is somatic. Secondly, I am an activist before I'm a therapist.
[:[00:17:11] Cherie Lindberg: Would it be safe to say like, you're holding these spaces for folks so that they can share their narrative? It sounds like it's freedom based, liberation based.
[:[00:17:34] Talking about anti blackness is really uncomfortable. Because when we think about racism, it doesn't always include very specifically colorism as well. So with me really holding space for the black community, it's multi layered because there's all this colorism that comes in.
[:[00:18:58] This is who I am. So when working with the black community, it's very important in my approach to talk about that. Just waking up as a black woman can be traumatizing. I'm proud to be who I am, but it also puts me at risk depending on the society and the communities that I live in. Although it shouldn't. And those are those internalized feelings and pains that I may not be able to talk about with someone who doesn't look like me or understands what it's like when I say that I went to the store and I was followed. I've had folks say, well, are you sure they were following you?
[:[00:19:46] Cherie Lindberg: If we go back to somatics again, if you are going into those environments and let's face it, all the systems that are out there, you're going to potentially be more sympathetic dominant because you have to be in a protective state as you're just walking around the neighborhood or walking into a store. And I'm glad that you're saying this, Jacqui, because my hope is by having this podcast, we, myself included need more education
[:[00:20:49] Jacqui Johnson: And it's in so many systems, people think like, Oh, slavery, that was back then. And that's not true because just recently, there, what is it in Florida, African American study isn't permitted in elementary schools, in public education. The audacity of that conversation that African American studies is banned. So what is African American then? if I'm an American and we're doing American history to specifically say that African American history is not accepted sends a clear message to children, to parents, to my community that we are not welcomed within the education system once again. Because to have conversation about my story isn't okay. We can't have this conversation, meaning we can't talk about the truth of the history in this country. We can learn about every other country in the world, but not here. So thinking of that as someone who lives here and in a black body that African American history. That's my lineage. How would that make me feel as a client? And now I'm in a space with people that don't look like me. So when I come in and I'm distraught about this, it's because we can't spread hate, even with my own self. I can feel on my own body, the thought of it, my own emotions, welling up with the pain and the anger. And part of what I do at Sankofa with holding spaces specifically for black bodies again, is this love project because there's so many things, so many things that we're facing every time we turn on the TV. And sometimes we want to just be able to come in and not have to talk about it but can just give the nod, give the look, certain statements you can make and then you can just kind of sit.
[:[00:22:49] Cherie Lindberg: I mean, it is perplexing. We're all on this planet together and none of us are getting out of here alive. We have to share the resources that are on here and it just would be so much nicer if we could have harmony, if we could learn to have disagreements respectfully and care for each other. So I hear your desire to care for the populations that get overlooked, And I can only imagine what that must be like in terms of, what have you witnessed. Like there's gotta be something that keeps you doing that work, right? Cause it's hard.
[:[00:23:43] Right. So I can't be there all the time and I can only do group stuff because I just don't have the capacity. I don't have the financial support to do the work that I do. I go in pro bono. But I remember teaching an individual bilateral stimulation. Being able to love on themselves and being able to do a butterfly hug.
[:[00:24:22] So when in this specific day, And I was so excited and women were lining up and, we're getting to everybody that was there at the premises. They were like way on the other side of the room and they were just doing a butterfly hug.
[:[00:24:53] We show up as we can. We give people as tools We don't know, the full picture. And those are the times where I'm like, Oh my gosh. And I remember just crying after it.
[:[00:25:20] And it was like, I don't know, 2017 or 18. And I remember you said, and it's like, Oh my gosh, like people are actually hearing those things. We're all in different spaces and places of our journeys, but it's just about us. And I treat every single person as if it's the only time I'll ever see them.
[:[00:26:13] And they're like, I spoke to someone else, who also lost a child and they said, this is where I need to go. So there's those stories of hope. It's also comes with burdens, right? As a therapist, but also that's my whys.
[:[00:26:39] Jacqui Johnson: Yeah, people can find me at Sankofa Healing Studio dot org.
[:[00:26:59] And I also do a lot of other trainings and workshops for clinicians, for people as well that are in the field and proceeds from doing those trainings. So supporting Sankofa with the trainings that we do support our mission as a whole to really, as you said, this balance of harmony.
[:[00:27:22] Cherie Lindberg: Well, I just wanna say thank you for the work that you do. Hearing more about what it is that you do, and I'm hoping that this might have the community moved to support your studio, because it's definitely a need.
[:[00:27:48] Jacqui Johnson: Yeah. I can't say thank you to you enough. Just having this relationship with you and the friendship that has developed between the two of us from coming from very different kind of spaces and ideas and understandings.
[:[00:28:25] Thank you. And I know you mentioned, it's not about, me having to do work and teach, but I am in that space of doing that. I welcome that space for folks and other folks as well, that, they want to do their own work. And I also want to understand. I'm always open to having those conversations with any and everyone.
[:[00:28:44] Cherie Lindberg: Yeah. Thank you. And I'll make sure when I put this out, that we'll have all those resources available so that people can reach out to you. So thank you for joining us today.
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