Overview

This innovative book lays out the journey of family therapist Makungu Akinyela in developing testimony therapy-a healing practice rooted in Black cultural traditions of testifying and storytelling. This book argues that traditional Eurocentric approaches to therapy often perpetuate colonial oppression in the lives of Black clients, and that decolonizing mental health requires centering African American cultural knowledge, history, and community. Drawing from thinkers from the Black radical critical tradition like Frantz Fanon and W. E. B. Du Bois, Dr. Akinyela frames testimony therapy as a narrative practice grounded in Ubuntu (the African communal self) and the oral traditions of African diasporic peoples. Testimony Therapy maps out theory, practices, and supervision approaches that help therapists support clients in resisting internalized racism, reclaiming self-definition, and nurturing liberated Black identities. Ultimately, this work is a call for Black therapists and clients to engage therapy as cultural resistance-a pathway to repair our souls and build collective freedom beyond Eurocentric limitations.

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9781324082415

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Reviews

Offers modern-day Western psychology a crucial and overdue challenge to the field's Eurocentric, noncontextualized, individualist, and colonizing foundations. Akinyela highlights how traditional Western psychological frameworks are not only culturally biased but have historically served as 'architects of adjustment' by preserving the status quo, while denying any social responsibility for perpetuating harmful sociopolitical knowledges. Mainstream Western psychology is further implicated in supporting the neoliberal agenda that defines distress, suffering, and trauma as privatized within the individual and viewed as phenomenon of a 'mismanaged life' rather than acknowledging relational, cultural, structural, and socioeconomic oppression. Dr. Akinyela's African-centered approach to narrative therapy and relational interviewing pushes us forward. This book will dramatically change how you practice therapy.--Stephen Madigan, PhD, training director, Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy, author of three editions of Narrative Therapy This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to help individuals, families, or communities heal the ongoing wounds of the colonial enterprise. Makungu Akinyela clearly and compellingly shares the wisdom gained in his journey to become the scholar-activist-healer these pages reveal him to be. I marvel at his ability to combine intellectual theory, personal history, and practical guidance in a way that keeps me engaged page by page.--Gene Combs, MD, coauthor of Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities This outstanding book introduces testimony therapy, a pioneering approach that utilizes African American cultural practices of testifying and empowerment through storytelling. It makes a strong case for decolonizing mental health by positioning this narrative therapy within Black historical traditions. Through clinical and supervisory examples, therapists will learn to help clients overcome adversity and oppression by nurturing hopefulness, cultural authenticity, and strong racial identities. It should be required reading in all programs training mental health professionals.--Nancy Boyd-Franklin, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Rutgers University, author of Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience

Offers modern-day Western psychology a crucial and overdue challenge to the field's Eurocentric, noncontextualized, individualist, and colonizing foundations. Akinyela highlights how traditional Western psychological frameworks are not only culturally biased but have historically served as 'architects of adjustment' by preserving the status quo, while denying any social responsibility for perpetuating harmful sociopolitical knowledges. Mainstream Western psychology is further implicated in supporting the neoliberal agenda that defines distress, suffering, and trauma as privatized within the individual and viewed as phenomenon of a 'mismanaged life' rather than acknowledging relational, cultural, structural, and socioeconomic oppression. Dr. Akinyela's African-centered approach to narrative therapy and relational interviewing pushes us forward. This book will dramatically change how you practice therapy.--Stephen Madigan, PhD, training director, Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy, author of three editions of Narrative Therapy This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to help individuals, families, or communities heal the ongoing wounds of the colonial enterprise. Makungu Akinyela clearly and compellingly shares the wisdom gained in his journey to become the scholar-activist-healer these pages reveal him to be. I marvel at his ability to combine intellectual theory, personal history, and practical guidance in a way that keeps me engaged page by page.--Gene Combs, MD, coauthor of Narrative Therapy: The Social Construction of Preferred Realities This outstanding book introduces testimony therapy, a pioneering approach that utilizes African American cultural practices of testifying and empowerment through storytelling. It makes a strong case for decolonizing mental health by positioning this narrative therapy within Black historical traditions. Through clinical and supervisory examples, therapists will learn to help clients overcome adversity and oppression by nurturing hopefulness, cultural authenticity, and strong racial identities. It should be required reading in all programs training mental health professionals.--Nancy Boyd-Franklin, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Rutgers University, author of Black Families in Therapy: Understanding the African American Experience [This is] the book that every Black person wishes their therapist had. In wonderfully legible prose, Akinyela explains why mental health care must be decolonized and exactly how to do it. Rife with examples and case studies, Testimony Therapy shows therapists how to help their African American clients draw on their cultural strengths to move forward with hope. Akinyela offers concrete suggestions for working with African Americans that look, feel, and sound Black. While intended for clinicians, [it] is also a text of self-empowerment, as it shows individuals how to do their own structured reflections about their lives, challenges, and futures. I cannot wait to gift this book to so many people in my life!--Stephen Madigan, PhD, Vancouver School of Narrative Therapy, author of three editions of Narrative Therapy

Author Information

Makungu M. Akinyela, PhD, LMFT, is a family therapist in practice for over thirty years, and an Associate Professor in the Africana Studies Department at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He has published extensively on issues of culture and decolonization in therapy. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

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