African Centered Family Healing

Abstract

African centered family healing posits an alternative paradigm that can be used as a model for family healing. Effective intervention begins with the recognition that what we have been doing has not been working for African American families (Boyd-Franklin, 1989; Kambon, 1998; Logan, Freeman and McRoy, 1990; Owusu-Bempah, 1999; and Weaver, 1992). Social work intervention efforts must integrate mental health constructs that exist in the communities we are attempting to serve. One such concept is communal knowledge. Another such concept is communal values. When one joins communal knowledge and values, one begins to restructure the understanding of mental health in the African American family. The family unit must be viewed as interdependent. This understanding is requisite to family healing. It is therefore necessary that we change our thinking and then our actions. This article posits that social workers must become social healers.

Conceptualizing healing through the African American experience of historical trauma.

“…Nonetheless, various definitions have been proposed to support discourse and examination of healing. Among these definitions are references to healing as a process to counteract distress (Draguns et al, 2004), restore varying degrees of health and wholeness (Draguns et al, 2004; Kirmayer, 2004; Meza & Fahoome, 2008; Parks, 2007), treat and rehabilitate wounds, and alleviate or transcend suffering (Mickel, 2002). In medical and clinical contexts, clinicians, physicians, and their treatment strategies are often elevated to serve as healers, curers, and/or agents of these processes (Egnew, 2005; Harley, 2006; Kirmayer, 2004).…”