February is Black History Month, and we are, of course, here for it. There have been many critically important contributions to the development of mental health care, and research that have come from the Black community such as:
🔹 Bebe Moore Campbell: An American author, journalist, teacher, and mental health advocate who worked tirelessly to shed light on the mental health needs of the Black community and other underrepresented communities. She founded NAMI-Inglewood in a predominantly Black neighborhood to create a space that was safe for Black people to talk about mental health concerns.
🔹Herman George Canady, Ph.D: A prominent Black clinical and social psychologist. He is credited with being the first psychologist to study the influence of rapport between an IQ test proctor and the subject, specifically researching how the race of a test proctor can create bias in IQ testing.
🔹E. Kitch Childs, Ph.D: In 1969, E. Kitch Childs helped to found the Association for Women in Psychology. She was also a founding member of Chicago's Gay Liberation Front. In addition to being a leader for women in psychology and the LGBTQ+ community, she also owned her own practice in which she provided therapy to LGBTQ+ folks, people living with HIV/AIDS, and other marginalized members of her community. She practiced feminist therapy, and centered her research and work around the experiences of Black women and feminist theory.
🔹Jennifer Eberhardt, Ph.D: An esteemed professor of psychology at Stanford University. She is an expert on the consequences of the psychological association between race and crime and has done extensive research on the topics of implicit bias, criminal justice, and the education system, and her work has provided the evidence needed to educate law enforcement officers in implicit bias training. In 2014, Dr. Eberhardt's work earned her the famous MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship.
🔹Maxie Clarence Maultsby, Jr, M.D: The founder of the psychotherapeutic method, rational behavioral therapy. Through his work and therapeutic method, Dr. Maultsby explored emotional and behavioral self-management. Dr. Maultsby's unique contributions include making emotional self-help a legitimate focus of scientific research and clinical use. Through rational behavior therapy, he formulated a comprehensive system of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy and counseling that incorporated, in a clinically useful way, the most recent neuropsychological facts about how the brain works in relation to emotional and behavioral self-control. The technique of cognitive-behavioral therapy and counseling that Dr. Maultsby created is the first comprehensive, yet short-term, culture and drug-free technique of psychotherapy that produces long-term therapeutic results.
These are only a small handful, who else would you highlight?
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