Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

I'm your host, Doctor Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.

While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session four twenty one of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast.

We'll get right into our conversation afterword from our sponsors.

This week, we're joined by doctor Afia and Billy Shaka, a clinical psychologist, hairstylist, professor, and the founder of Psychoherapy, an innovative approach that uses hair care as an entry point into mental health in the black community.

As Black women, our hair is more than just what's at the surface.

It shapes identity, signals care, and holds cultural memory.

In our conversation, Doctor Afia and I dig into the deep emotional and historically nuanced ties we have to our hair and how that relationship can mirror our mental health.

If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in session, or join us over on our Patreon channel To talk more about the episode, You can join us at Community Therapy for Black girl dot com.

Here's our conversation.

Thank you so much for joining us today, doctor Fia.

I'm so happy to be here.

You don't know how long I've been wanting to be on your podcasts.

Oh my gosh.

Well, I am very glad that the timing has arrived, very excited to have this conversation with you, Doctor Ophia.

I feel like you and other therapists have been doing such incredible work in terms of talking with black women around hair issues, and really I think solidifying in like normalizing like that hair can be a mental health issue, right Like I think for a lot of the time people saw it as frivolous and like, oh, why is there something to be concerned about?

But I think you're working again the many others has really solidified this as an area of concern, and I'm curious to hear how you feel like your work has changed, maybe in the advent of social media, because I think there has long been this pressure for black women to kind of be together, right, which means your edges are laid perfectly quoffed all of the things.

And I do think the conversations I feel like I see around hair feel like they're different in the lane of social media.

So can you talk about like the transition maybe you've seen in your work, maybe over the past five to seven years.

Oh yes, So it's interesting because I think hair is a complex language system, right in terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, your spiritual beliefs.

But I think with social media there's like a hyper fixation and observation of our hair, right that this is sometimes the first thing someone sees when we make a post or a real is how our hair is stiled.

And so I think that it lasts a lot longer than our old school day to day life of maybe you didn't have the best hair day could go away, but the way our hair lives on in social media can't be quite stressful.

So I love that you started by saying the hair is a complex language system.

I have never heard that terminology.

But as you said, you will see age and marital status and all of those things.

Can you talk more about that language around, like how it is a language system.

Oh yeah, this is not just me.

This is our ancient African ancestors who identified here as a language system, that there would be certain initiations or rights of passage with each age group having a certain hairstyle.

So even like for the Messiah in Tanzania, that even at birth a child gets a haircut, it represents this transition from the spiritual world to the physical realm, and so that Baldi, even at ten days old, is shown that they've gone through an initiation process or for rights of passage or for marriage.

Sometimes you could only wear a certain hairstyle if you were married, literally to let people know you were no longer on the market, and it was signaling to people that you were in a relationship or even in elder status.

Sometimes when we got certain degrees in traditional African societies, we got to wear certain hairstyle.

So instead of like that cap and gown situation, we would wear a certain hairstyle to let people know that we've achieved a certain knowledge that is, so we could wear a certain hairstyle with our psychology degrees.

So it's kind of our tradition to have this top down approach to understanding who we are.

And even in a lot of traditional African societies, if your hair was not neatly groomed, you were actually seen as having a mental illness.

It was a signal to other people that you couldn't take care of yourself and needed lots of love and community support.

Very interesting, So, doctor I Fhia, I had some ideas about what I wanted to talk to you about today, but clearly we are just off to the races because now I'm interested in this.

So it sounds like in African tradition, like hair was more ritualistic, right, like, you know, babies have this initiation process, and it seems like hair being done was more an indication of care, right, and an indication of like culture.

And it feels like in our society, like Black American and you know, the Western society, it seems like hair is much more like, Okay, how close can we be to the oppressors?

Right?

Like how closely does your hair mirror like white women's hair?

And it doesn't feel like, so, even though hair was a very central part of the conversation, even historically, it feels like we have lost some of the tradition of what hair meant and it has become a very different thing now.

Agreed, I think everybody likes looking good.

I think your hair looks amazing about the way everybody.

Think you like life.

I think what looking good has shifted and changed.

Right, in traditional African society, there was this ideal of healthy hair.

But I think through enslaving, colonization, oppression, that looking good has shifted a bit in terms of having certain approximations to whiteness, or even being mindful of how black women's hair in particular is policed in terms of being this symbol of worthiness, or of professionalism or even morality.

So I think the meaning of hair has shifted.

So how do we divorce ourselves from some of that?

All?

Right?

Because you know, so much of it is a societal thing, Like we are kind of born into this idea of I don't know if you had days Easter Sundays spent getting your hair pressed with the present holding your ear right.

So much of it we learn from very very young And I do feel like we are now taking some of the power out of that, right, like with the whole natural hair moving and people kind of letting their hair do what it does.

But I do feel like it is still a struggle for many of us.

So how do we start breaking up with this idea of perfectly quaffed and needing to be respectable in some sense?

Hmm, this is a good question.

I'm still working on it.

I think there certainly is such a pressure to be perfect, but then perfectionism becomes a present right in terms of really controlling the way that we make choices around our hair.

I'm still working on this, doctor Duay again for myself.

But I think a big piece is even exploring our hair identity.

I'll say so, I like to think a lot about our internalized and evolving stories of hair.

So I like to explore people's earliest memories of their hair, a low point related to hair, maybe a high point or even a turning point.

And I think in those hair stories that all of us have that's deeply embedded into our conscious or subconscious, can give us insight about why we are trying to control our hair in a certain way and what conflicts we need to resolve.

To let our hair be itself.

Again, there's that hyper regulation and observation of our hair.

But I think sometimes we do it to ourselves and we can figure out the origin story of maybe something that somebody said to us once or we were teased or bullied, and look back to see how that even guides our need for perfectionism.

Now, okay, doctor, if you we're gonna have to sit here for a second.

So you see, as you were talking, I'm thinking about like my early hair stories, right, so I already shared like the East of Sunday, like getting ready for the pressing comb.

So it used to be.

I feel like they have fancy containers now, but my like borette container was like an old baby cloth what do you call it?

Like wash cloth, the things to use for the baby's diapers, right, Like that is where all of my boris were.

And so I really remember like getting my container to like sit between my mother's legs and like get my hair comb right.

And so that to me wasn't a traumatic memory.

Maybe like the pressing comb and having to hold my ear, that also felt like very loving and like communal.

Right, Like, I think so much of my stories around hair are like with my mom or my aunt or are you know like those kinds of things.

And so you mentioned what are our earliest stories about hair?

And there were two others?

What were the others like our high point maybe the best we ever felt about our hair, or a lower point and even a turning point if there was some transition where we thought of ourselves and our hair in one way and how did it change shift with time?

Ah?

Okay, So is there an early story around here that you feel comfortable sharing?

I do thank you for consenting.

As I do, I would think back to getting my hair done as well.

I'm the youngest of four children, and Sunday nights were such a special time for me and my mom because it was wash day and it was that one on one attention that I think I was craving where she would wash and style my hair.

And my mom is a retired teacher, and I felt like she made it really educational, like it involved counting and colors and things like that, where she was actually doing lessons related to styling my hair.

But I really liked that she gave me choice and how I wanted my hair done.

She would let me every Sunday pick the number of braids that I wanted to wear that week.

So I would just shout out a number like eleven, and she okay, I'm gonna come with a pattern of eleven braids or I like three braids a lot, so but you'd put them in all different directions or tie them up or leave them out.

And so I think that I have really positive memories because my mom did not hit me with the brush, and I know that's a lot of people's expence.

I would say I feel like I got hit with the brush for sure, like not holding still, but.

She was gentle, mopefully I'm not tender headed, because I know that's a lot of black women's experience and I had a lot of hair growing up, but my mom was very, very gentle.

She would tell me stories or speak affirmations to me.

And I think that's even the basis of me loving hair at this point because it wasn't a traumatic early experience.

But I know that's not typical for a lot of black women.

But the care and investment made me feel so loved.

By my mom.

So how do we use these stories after FIA?

So if somebody's enjoying our conversation in there, stopping like, Okay, let me go think about some of my early hair stories.

How do we then use those stories to kind of maybe reimagine what our relationship to our hair looks like?

Now, all great question.

I'm actually trained as a narrative therapist, so I love storytelling in our work, and so, just like any other story, it's an exploration of identity in terms of how can that story help to answer who you are?

How can that story help to answer sort of what was your concern or problem versus what was society putting onto you?

In terms of us being burned, because I did yet burned too, But I'm choosing to tell the vagentle experience.

Why were we getting burned on our foreheads, our ears, our next as children?

To think why was such high levels of heat being applied to our heads, knowing that we moved around a lot, but to really identify the systems that guided our need our hair to look so perfect, right, going back to systems of white supremacy, gender politics, respectability politics, that even how our hair looked was a reflection of how well our mothers took care of us or our attachment to them and their reputation.

So to think about how society was showing up even on those wash days too.

Yeah, I mean, and again, I think going back to your early example of like hair being a complex language, right Like, even that like that hair and how a child's hair looks is an indication of like hair from their parents, Right So it is much deeper than hair, right Like.

It may just look like hair to you, but there are lots of things playing out in the background.

I think for.

Black women, hair is a projection, right in terms of the meaning the emotions that we put with it, whether it's pride or shame or anything in between.

What kinds of conversations around maybe the natural hair movement have you had, maybe with clients and maybe some struggles there.

You mean, Okay, I definitely have sent clients to natural hair slines to get big chop.

But I'm thinking about sort of these transitional periods where someone is experiencing maybe some significant shedding or hair loss or damage overall, and them holding on to this damaged hair one it does need to go.

And so a lot of my work has held the client's hand as they've made a decision to focus on the health of their hair versus the length of it.

Right, we all try to hold onto those edges, not just edges.

Let me that's it the length, right, because I think the length has so much connection to sense of like attractiveness or femininity, but it's not healthy.

And so just like we would go through a motivational interviewing with a client that maybe wanted to change a health habit, it looks pretty similar one which helping clients go through transitions with their hair.

Mm hm.

I love that that is a part of a treatment plan for you, right, like, let's actually go and get a big job.

And I think it's in to let the audience know too that in addition to being in a psychologist, you are also trained as a hairdresser, right, which is a beautiful like meeting of your world, I think, and have developed this entire program called psychotherapy.

So tell us more about the program and how it was an extension of the work that you were doing as a psychologist.

So I've always loved doing hair.

I was my family's hairstylist as a teenager, and then when I went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, I would have these many pop up hair salons in my dorm room and I remember loving that position and role in my dorm because I knew everything that was happening in people's lives.

I knew who was dating, who I knew who was doing well in school, all based on these conversations that were happening during the haircare process.

And I remember talking to my aunt Brenda on the phone one day she's now an ancestor, and telling her I'm not sure what I want to do after I graduate from college.

Should I become a psychologist or a hair stylist?

And so she said to me, well, why can't you do both.

Now, I don't think she was telling me to do both at the same exact time, but that's the way I interpreted and thought, hmm, I can do hair and therapy together.

So then I went to Howard because I wanted to study black mental health, and while I was there and bring up the hair topic, but everybody did not validate that this was a real thing, like no, our hair connects to our emotions and mental health, but nobody was studying that.

So I ended up studying like racial identity and would sneak in hair every now and then into a research study, which was very relevant, especially at Howard.

And then I went on to become a staff psychologist or in our college at Columbia University, and then I became a professor at Howard again and open up a research lab.

We would go to Washington, DC hair salons and barbershops and interview people about mental health topics.

So while they were getting their hair done, they were filling out surveys for our research.

And then I went to hair school.

So it was in that order that I got everything I could get with a PhD.

So had a private practice with a professor all of that license, but then went to hair school and was able to join up these different worlds in terms of this unique qualification of licensed clinical psychologists with hair stylists and started actually doing trainings for hairstylists to integrate mental health first AID into their work.

So the way that it exists right now, I do a lot of trainings with barbers and hairstylists to recognize the signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance abuse, and how to support someone through that, how to navigate a crisis, how to diffuse a crisis, how to refer someone to a psychologist.

And they all know about the directory or people for black girls, I use that as a resource for people to get connected.

And so that's where it exists in this way to use all of my psychology skills to bring it into the salon and barbershop space and love this.

And so you talk about hairstylists and barbers kind of being modern day healers.

I mean even in your own example, you know, hearing about your cousins, love stories, and all of these things because you are so intimate with them, right, Like hair is a very intimate kind of thing.

So can you say more about like the role that hairstylists and Barbara's have had as healers in our community.

Oh yes, so you know, back to after again, people oftentimes would have to be initiated into the status of priesthood in order to touch someone's head.

And one of my favorite African proverbs goes, when your sister is your hairdresser, you need no mirror.

Again, when your sister is your hairdresser, you need no mirror.

So I think there's such a trusting relationship between stylists and their clients.

I might even say our community might trust stylists more than psychologists.

I don't know, I kind of feel that way.

And so Oftentimes, stylists and barbers are what public health would call lay health advisors, meaning that they're already trusted individuals and the community that are already distributing information and resources, especially around health.

But they don't offer any formal training about mental health and cosmetology or barbering schools.

So that's sort of my entry point because they're doing it already.

I just want to make sure that they have strategies, techniques, and some evidence based approaches that we learned in graduate school.

Yeah, I would agree with you.

I do feel like in a lot of ways, like hair solace and barbers are more trusted, and they typically see us at some pretty vulnerable like important times, right like your wedding day or you know, like okay, your first haircut after you had a baby, or your breakup haircut, right like, they are typically apart of some of those very pivotal moments.

So I agree with you that there is often a lot more trust there than maybe even a therapist who is kind of a stranger to you at first meeting.

There are existing relationships, and I'm very much mindful of the ethics of it all, but there's this one old support group and network that even exists in the salon, not only between the stylists and their client, but the overall community.

I know that's changing a little bit with salon suite, but we know that this is like a community space where there's crosstalk where other people can add in and weigh in on what someone's going through.

I love that you mentioned that, right, because I think that that is something that I'm hearing a little bit of conversation around, is how the culture of salons have changed, right, Like I definitely remember going to a salon with my mom on a Saturday morning and you're kind of preparing to be there all day, right, but like you're listening to all the town gossip and like people sharing their information, and somebody comes in telling lunch or something, right, Like it very much was a communal space, And now I appreciating the interests of like efficiency that like only one person is scheduled at a time, like they're not a bunch of us in there.

But it does feel like there has been something lost because you don't have like that traditional maybe salon experience.

Things are changing, I know with the salons weet experienced, it almost mirrors individual therapy a bit more since there's that one on one time and often spending hours still together.

I know the last time I had a set of knotless braids installed was December and I was there seven hours and we talked about every single topic on the planet, so that I almost feel like the stylist needs to have more conversational skills when it is the salon's sweet setting because it's just the two of you.

But also for a lot of the stylists who have been certified in psychotherapy, they even give their clients the opportunity to pick a talking ob session or a quiet or silent one because just like we have like ride shairs or uber, sometimes you don't want to talk to the person the whole ride to the airport and maybe you do, so even giving that as an option for the SAUN experience.

So tell me more about the certification.

What kinds of things are included when a barber or a stylist become certified as a psychohapist?

Okay, So I divide the certification into three parts.

The first module is focused on the history of our hair.

I don't know if you could tell already, doctor job, but I am a hair historian, and so I go through like thousands of years of hair history to really connect silas and barbers to this sacred role that they've always had in our communities.

And it's again not taught in cosmetology or barbering school.

And then the second module is on identifying the signs and symptoms of mental illness and communities of color, so we know that depression looks a little bit different in the textbooks than it does on a black woman, right, in terms of even navigating feelings of irritability or anger when someone's highly distressed or depressed.

So going into sort of how certain mental health concerns can show up in the chair, like trichotillomania, right, which is an anxiety disorder of hair pulling, and noticing those signs for a client.

And then finally the third part is on micro counseling skills, so to be able to engage in active listening, because I think a lot of stylists error on the side of giving too much advice when they maybe haven't listened to the full story.

And so we practice a lot of active listening so that people can use paraphrasing, empathy.

The stuff again we learned in graduate school about how to make sure that someone feels heard and understood.

And again a big part of what I train people is to know their limitations and how to make referrals to a psychiatrist versus a social worker or psychologist or family therapists or couple's therapists.

So getting very familiar with each and again using the directory.

More from our conversation after the break.

And so what is required for somebody to kind of keep up their certification as a psychohapist?

Is it like a yearly kind of continuing education kind of thing or what happens I don't have.

That I should have been.

It's I see it sort of as CPR, where there's that initial class where they get all that information.

But I know for CPR you are supposed to renew every three years, so okay, I might have to add that in terms of the refreshers and recertification.

And I'm kids to hear what kinds of stylists and barbers are typically drawn to the program, because I definitely could see some stylists who are like, oh, absolutely, this feels like I already do this, Like I love to have additional skills.

So how do people find out about the program and what kind of feedbacks have you gotten from stylists about it.

Yeah, I see a range of people who sign up.

I do see more folks who are in the natural haircare industry.

I think they have more relationship to seeing hair as a health intervention, right in terms of being intentional about the product choices or not braiding the hair too tight.

So I find natural hair stylus lean more into psychicalhape than others, maybe just because I have natural hair that they think I want to talk about natural hair, but you don't have to be a natural hair stylist to get certified.

And I see such a range of ages.

A lot of people have been elders, like sixty seventy year olds who wish they had this in the beginning of their career because the topic of mental health would come up so frequently, but no one ever gave them any career specific advice or education related to mental health.

But then I see a lot of the new cosmetologists coming in as well, because I think going through the pandemic, that people are just much more mental health oriented than ever before.

And I definitely overall saw on an uptick related to our COVID years because oftentimes stylists were the only interaction that some people were having in terms of the isolation periods and quarantines and so meeting more skills to be able to support someone through grief, in particular if they had lost someone during the pandemic.

And so I think this sort of post pandemic stylist has been more attracted to psychotherapy than even before.

Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense.

Is there a particular story when you feel like psychotherapy really clicked, either for a stylist or for a client.

I would say that I got a message from a stylist who had completed psychotherapy and she said it saved someone's life.

I'm like, tell me more.

And so basically she said she used the skill set of identifying suicidal thoughts or actions or ideation and was able to get someone to the hospital from the salon chair to like the basically the psych word.

And she said, I don't think I would have known that what this client was saying was actually about suicide because they never said the word suicide.

And so she said, by hearing certain signs because I tell them in the class that I used to work at a research clinic that only focus on black suicide, and we would do something called psychological autopsies and interview families of people who had completed suicide or friends of people who had completed suicide and would get all the language and signs that actually happened.

And so by teaching that to the stylists, they can attune themselves and observe a bit more around what suicide ideation looks like, a suicide plan, and even ambivalence and to know how to get support, Like a lot of stylists have never heard of nine eighty eight, right in terms of these hotlines that have come up that's outside of NIO on one that are specific to mental health topics, and so like providing the client what's next, I'll drive you over there, like this is where you can check in and I'll sit with you as your triage.

And so just to hear that report back is something that stands.

Out a lot.

Yeah, that is a very powerful Sorry, thank you for sharing that.

You mentioned.

A part of the training is helping them not to stay in the line between their role as maybe like a guide to resources as opposed to the resource themselves.

Can you say more about, like what is that piece of the training specifically right, because I think sometimes like you know just enough to be dangerous, and so what kinds of lessons or what kinds of things are you teaching people to help them kind of stay on that line.

Oh yeah, I think one of the first lessons I teach in psychotherapy is the importance of boundaries.

I'm very clear with the training about competency and limitations and ethics in terms of I really encourage the stylists to know that they are not licensed psychologists, that there is someone who has the training and the degrees that can do that work.

It's a matter of being able to support someone in the space.

I think it's important for a stylists to even set boundaries, saying something like what you're saying is really important, but I might not be the best person to talk about this particular timepic with, so even going through and practicing, or if they feel more open to it, to say, would you be open to speaking with someone else and actually having referrals.

In the salone.

So even a part of the certification process, I give each stylist a list of ten therapists that are local to their salon, so that they have that list ready and can make an active referral.

I also encourage the stylists to tune in to what they're feeling.

I give them techniques like to say to a client, I'm having a really strong reaction to what you're saying.

To even say something like that so that it creates pause, so that the client can know that this is a lot to manage without necessarily stifling them.

But again a recognition that the stylist is a person too who has their own triggers.

So you have now left all of the other work that you were doing and kind of devoted yourself full of time now to psychotherapy.

I'm wondering what that process has been like for you, and like, at what point did you know that it was time to kind of take that pivot?

Okay, well, I was a part of the Great Resignation of twenty twenty one where I had been a full time professor and had my research lab, but decided to make the transition to have a larger classroom, not just being at one institution, but whoever wanted to study with me could And so it's been very challenging that Joy, you didn't warn me about this entrepreneurship.

I wish I could have.

I don't know it all either.

So I've been very lucky to have great brand deals, shampoo companies reaching out to me and supporting stylist getting scholarships to get trained in psychotherapy.

But I actually made a decision to transition back into academia.

So in the fall, I am going to be a professor again.

And one of the reasons I chose this particular school is in their recruitment of me that there is a black student run hair salon on campus and so that that will actually be a part of my lab space.

And they are letting me teach a class called psychohapy in the curriculum.

So I feel like this is a space that I can continue to build out my research, still certify people, have them even come into this space.

But I am transitioning back.

So fall exciting, exclus me exclusive if you heard it here first, I love that.

I love that.

So, you know, I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier that you know as a part of your work at Howard.

People were like, I don't know about this hair thing, right, So you would think that if at any of the places that would be validated, it would be at Howard and not a not to Howard.

I think in the field like we had a very long way to go, and I think the field is now catching up.

But I wonder what has been the broader reaction and response to your work of bridging the gap between the mental health world and the hair world.

Howard definitely helped me to facilitate my expertise in understanding race and racial dynamic.

But as we know, academia is oftentimes so disconnected to the community that we could write all these papers, but if no one is reading it outside of who has access to an APA journal, then it doesn't translate.

So a big part of the psychohapy work is making sure stylists and the general community has access to it.

So a big part is I like to give presentations in salons, I like to post in blogs that people are reading.

I was even in therapy for Black girls in terms of making sure people have that information or knowledge, And so I think that academia sometimes misses the community element.

One of my favorite magazine articles was with doctor Joe White.

So he's like the father of black psychology, and he published the first black psychology article ever in Ebony magazine.

And so I'm just even thinking about how to make the information accessible and active, and to make sure that people from the community come to college campuses and professors get to speak at barbershops.

So even that was a big piece at Howard.

I would have faculty members do their whole fancy lectures at barbershops to explain these complex psychological concepts that actually have relevance that people weren't accessing if they didn't pay tuition to go to this place.

And that was even a borrow from doctor Francis cres Welson, who was a very famous black psychiatrist who would always do community talks and conversations.

I hope I'm answering the question, but I just started thinking, yeah, yeah, I mean I think it is.

You just kind of following and then lineage right like that it is important to get all this stuff that we get, but who is it serving if we're not actually giving it back to the community, Like it's great to be published in these journals, but like are the people actually helped by us only writing in the journals?

Exactly?

You got it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

More from our conversation after the break, So what would you say you said entrepreneurship was that hard?

What would you say to other mental health professionals who maybe are interested in kind of merging worlds in the way that you have done.

Well, I don't think you have to pick one.

I don't think you have to pick one career path.

I think a lot of us in psychology or mental health fields are multi hyphen it and sometimes we feel like if we're good at reading and writing, we have to automatically do something in school.

But I think that you can merge whatever passion it is with learning about mental health topics because health and wellness are part of every discipline and field, and to be able to add that mental health component, whether it's other forms of art, engineering, the stem fields, fashion, it all can connect back to mental health.

What conversations would you encourage other mental health professionals to have about hair, because again I think that this is something that you know, maybe black women are I think are particularly attuned too, But I don't think the greater clinician community is at tuned to like conversations around hair.

So how would you encourage them to think about hair as a part of their work with clients.

Yeah, I think hair is a part of everyone's mental health work.

Although I focus on black women I think hair is a universal mental health topic.

So even in the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of ces for therapists related to hair.

I think in our training the only time hair really would come up traditionally was in a mental status exam.

Right, We're supposed to assess the client the first time they ever walked through our doors, we ever see them to see if they're taking care of themselves.

Right, We're supposed to note how they're dressed, their affect, and even we can notice their hair, if their hair is groomed, or if it's excessively groomed.

Right, in terms of every hair being in place, how to interpret and document that?

And so in the past few weeks, being contracted to docees for a variety of companies of therapists, I've been focusing on how to help clients with hair stress.

So hair stress is actually a psychological concept developed by doctor Evelyn Winfield Thomas, where she makes an argument that we've experienced great levels of anxiety and sometimes even depression when our hair does not look the way we want it to look.

Right, I know hair depression is real, and that's like the social media conversation.

But doctor Evelyn Winfield Thomas, who's a black psychologist, has been really studying this construct, using different self esteem scals and depression scales and anxiety skills to be able to make an argument that there's physical and psychological consequences to when your hair doesn't look the way you want it to look.

And so some of the physical consequences meaning we put really toxic chemicals in our hair, our scalp.

Even if someone's natural, there can still use things that have carcinogens and it now everything probably has toxins and it as we get these new reports, but just that it can actually cause hair loss that we're so trying to control the way the hair looks that it ends up falling out right or it causes urine fibroids or other health issues because we're putting certain toxins in our scalp.

But again, the psychological consequence in terms of we might hate our hair or hate the way we look, and how to be able to address that.

And so the therapists that I've been working with in the past few weeks is to actually come up with strategy and techniques to treat hair stress also even to cope with hair discrimination, right with the Crown Act that I've loved the expansion of understanding what hair discrimination is and having policies around protecting natural hairstyles.

But once hair discrimination has happened, how does someone work through that?

So I've been training a lot of therapists.

If a client were to come in saying that they experienced hair discrimination at work, at school, and a housing opportunity, whatever it might be, how do you walk someone through that process of unpacking that trauma to be able to heal from it.

I'm also curious, I know you have done a lot of work doctor for you with like brands, what kind of sentiment do you have around brands and their attention and care to like black women's particular struggles with hair, and like the conversations we have around hair and texturism, Like what kind of sentiment do you get from working with brands or just from that side m.

Okay coming with the heavy hitters that you join.

Yeah, I like a brand's level authenticity in terms of we want to learn, we want to do better.

I will consult with a lot of brands about how to make sure that they have enough for sea hair on their website and on their Instagram page.

I'll make sure that they understand what porosity is and how it varies for foresea hair, so things that we would think that they know about, but it's not being communicated through their messaging.

I also, yeah, have been able to think about how the brand should be giving back.

Right, they're taking all this money from our communities.

Because black women spend a lot on hair.

We like looking good.

Nothing is wrong with that.

But if you're gonna take so much, how do you invest back into the community.

What can you set up in terms of scholarships for school or for internships, to have someone be on your staff, and just sort of being mindful of perpetuating white supremacy even in their brand marketing and messaging overall, to be cautious of this white ideal of beauty of long, straight, white, little blonde hair, and even being able to navigate that.

And so the brands that have reached out to me do seem to have an interest in investment in wellness.

Some of the cleaner products, but even those that are wanting to learn to take out some of the toxins put plant based materials in them have been in communication and community with me.

Mm hm.

So you mentioned and we talked about this several times.

Doctor.

If we have this idea that you know, black women like to look good, right, and that is okay?

And I also think that there does become a point at which there may be a preoccupation.

Are we are reaching some like levels of clinical concern?

Can you talk about, like where does it cross the line from like I just like to look good to maybe we have something that we could explore a little further.

So the first thing I think of, of course, is body dysmorphic disorder.

Right, So, body dysmorphia is this hyper fixation on a perceived flaw.

It means it doesn't even have to exist, but someone needs to correct or fix something.

So I think that's a sign of a clinical concern, that it's not like, oh I just like looking good versus something is wrong with me and therefore I need to fix it and improve it or control it.

As a stylist, I've worked with clients who are very particular about what side they want parted or how they want certain parts of their style to look.

But it's at a point where someone cannot have the part on the left side or the middle because it can only be on the right.

Is where it gets a little bit more concerning because not being open to change or to see how other things look on them, it's sort of a rigidity, and I think that's even part of it too.

But with body dysmorphia, again, even after getting a service done, whether makeup or hair in the person still is unhappy with how they look.

So even going through all these treatments and beauty rituals, still not feeling good.

I think this can come up to in certain personality disorders.

Just even thinking about some psychological concerns where someone needs to use their sexuality and uses their hair or beauty to get attention or manipulate other people.

I'm even thinking about when it comes to eating disorders as well, in terms of again a hyperfixation on weight, but even how hair and beauty can be applied to that if we look at psychological disorders where if a certain thought, feeling, or behavior becomes dangerous impacts their ability to function in terms of go to work or go to school, or being a relationship, or even if their behavior can fit outside of our cultural norms, like we do a lot to our hair and our skin, but if it's to some extreme that like we don't do that to even scale it in that way, and if it causes a lot of stress, right, if the hair care process is too stressful for someone, that that's where it gets into some of the clinical levels.

Yeah, doctor I Fia.

I know you also had a book come out recently, Laid to the Side that really examines like young girls perceptions of hair and like their stories around hair.

Was there anything kind of particularly shocking that came out of like what you learned in talking to young women and young girls about their hair.

I think what surprised me the most is that the same things that were happening to me in the nineties in school are happening right now.

In my head, I thought with the natural hair movement or just changing approaches to hair care, that there would be greater satisfaction, less bullying, less hair harassment, But it's still happening.

I think that that's disappointing that school policies haven't shifted or changed to be more embracing, and that black girls still continue to be adultified and hyper punished for their creative choices, and that there's still so much policing of black hair.

And if there's somebody who's enjoying our conversation right now, doctor Fia, and they are navigating a complicated relationship with their hair or some shame or some trauma or perfectionism.

As we've talked about, what's something that you'd want them to be sure to hear today?

Okay, let me think about that.

Okay, how about this, When we release the need to be perfect, we can welcome in peace.

I'll dry that.

I love that.

That feels like a good quotable.

So I feel like I have to end with you giving us maybe some more hair history that you have not shared.

So you've already given us such incredible stuff.

But is there any other piece of history that you want to make sure it's to share?

Oh wow, I have thousands of years the pressure.

I just want to really identify how much hair was connected to our liberation.

So as much as we see sort of like slave narratives of the hersh punishment of African people, that we fought back through our hair.

For example, in order to find free places, whether in North America, the Caribbean, South America, we would braid maps into our hair, and so it was this like topographical map that our ancestors would make that they could turn left.

At the river right at the mountain, and they could feel it.

If they ever got caught, they would take their hair out, they would take the braids out to be able to protect whoever got free to stay free.

So it was through our hair that we found freedom.

Oh I love that.

I love that.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

So where can we stay connected with you, Doctor Fia and find out more information about psychohapy, So any website you want to share, as well as any social media handles.

Well, definitely check out psychoherapy dot org.

And also we have an Instagram at psychohapy or if you want to follow me because I give a lot of hair information on my personal Instagram page which is at doctor Fia.

So Dr Underscore Afiya perfect.

Will we short to include all of that in the show notes.

Thank you so much for spending some time with me today.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Of course, I'm so glad doctor Fia could join us for today's episode and hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.

To learn more about her and her work, visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.

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This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indaichuvu and Tyree Rush.

Editing was done by Dennis and Bradford.

Thank you so much for joining me again this week.

I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.

Take it care.

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