Putting wellness focus on culture

By A prELL M ay MUNForD amunford@repub.com

Whitney Dodds is on a mission to encourage good health, reframe the incentive to do well and develop positive mental health awareness in communities of color.

Dodds, the founder of Wellness for the Culture, at 1365 Main St. in downtown Springfield, believes representation in therapy is vital for many reasons.

Wellness for the Culture provides a safe space to heal for people in communities of color by offering a tailor-made approach to encourage engagement in therapy, while dismantling the cultural stigma that often hinders Black and brown people and other marginalized communities from receiving treatment.

Growing up in Springfield, Dodds said the disparity in culturally appropriate mental health services in the area is no secret.

Dodds’ voyage into the mental health field started through reflecting on and learning to talk about her own journey in life. At 12 amid a traumatic childhood, Dodds said she was mandated by a court to attend therapy, which was not effective. Dodds admits the only thing she knew at the time about therapy is what she saw and heard on TV shows.

And while Dodds made it through those sessions as an adolescent, she did not really want to go back. However, a breakthrough happened when Dodds was in college and she realized she was culturally experiencing life differently than some of her peers.

“I grew up needing therapy, but I did not know what it was,” Dodds said. “I noticed that other students did not have the same experiences,

I’ve had.”

Understanding that Black and brown people have different experiences was just a part of the battle, she said.

From then on, she said she knew the real work would be in getting to the root cause of why many people of color don’t seek the treatment they may need and deserve.

“Maybe it is education, maybe advocacy, the cultural stigma and what people can access,” she said.

Dodds said, other factors for mental health treatment disparities are forced therapy by the state, the misunderstandings about stigma that are not recognized or people putting off treatment because therapy or even themselves are not viewed as a priority.

“There is no cultural competency because the system did not include us,” she said.

In addition, there are some who do not see the benefit of mental health treatment and don’t understand how a system of social inequality can cause oppression, Dodds said.

Dodds said she has since discovered through her work that safety and trust are not always a priority when people of color seek treatment and in turn that has a profound effect on the way people seek and view effective treatment.

For example, Dodds explained, people can be misdiagnosed based on their faith, which is directly related in most cases to culture. What some may consider a visit by the holy spirit could be misinterpreted as borderline schizophrenia, she said.

Additionally, the fear of being reported for needing help prevents others in the Black and brown community from seeking help, she added.

According to Dodds, people of color need to know if they speak to a therapist about abuse, hunger or home instability that they won’t be unnecessarily reported to the state Department of Children and Family Services, and if they talk about a spiritual encounter, they won’t be over medicated, she said.

“Black women die because of this narrative; little Black boys are diagnosed and misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder more,” she said. “Some parents may worry about domestic violence. If they report abuse, will their children be taken away? If I reach out, will they help me? Or will it do more harm than benefit?”

According to Dodds, true change will come with a shift in the narrative of mental health care in Black and brown communities.

Creating pathways for success and cultivating conversations are the beginning steps to dismantling and eradicating the stigma and knocking down the barriers usually seen from the outside as privilege, Dodds told The Republican.

“Half the battle is not having to explain certain things in your existence,” Dodds said.

Here Wellness for the Culture effort offers safe spaces for people of color to set the terms of their healing without having to disregard their authenticity to fit a white narrative.

“It is like when a conversation is mom to a mom, we got it. Therapy is not monistic, Black people want to heal safely,” she said.

Dodds said she disrupts the notion that there is only one kind of ultimate therapy by building rapport, using trust as a tool to change the minds of Black and brown people who may be hesitant to seek therapy for those reasons.

Whitney Dodds is the founder of Wellness for the Culture, a mental health organization in Springfield that is focused on developing positive mental health awareness in communities of color. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from American International College.

By sharing her own example of success after overcoming adversity, Dodds feels like she can change the narrative one client at a time.

“When my clients come in, I am not just with the therapist but an advocate,” she said. “I will give them homework. If there is something they would like to accomplish, we will work on an action plan together to take steps in the process of learning how to also self-advocate.”

And while Wellness for the Culture is still in a small office, Dodds believes it is doing a lot to shift the negative narrative in the community of color and breakdown the barriers of quality culturally competent mental health care.

As a therapist, workshop facilitator, panelist and author, Dodds is focused on the well-being of the community and approaches treatment in six different ways including cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, mindfulness, multicultural, person-centered and solution-focused treatment.