Helping? : A Search to Understand Healing from an Indigenous African-Centered Perspective / by Gillian Berry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Berry, Gillian., Author.

Series:

Behavioral Science and Psychology Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychology.

Clinical psychology.

Cognitive psychology.

Counseling.

Mental health.

Social psychiatry.

Behavioral Sciences and Psychology.

Clinical Psychology.

Cognitive Psychology.

Counseling Psychology.

Mental Health.

Clinical Social Work.

Local Subjects:

Behavioral Sciences and Psychology.

Clinical Psychology.

Cognitive Psychology.

Counseling Psychology.

Mental Health.

Clinical Social Work.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XIX, 162 p.)

Edition:

1st ed. 2025.

Place of Publication:

Cham : Springer Nature Switzerland : Imprint: Springer, 2025.

Summary:

This book exists to encourage helping professionals, particularly those at the beginning of their careers, to critically explore and understand current strategies in fields such as psychotherapy, psychology, and social work. Historical examples of helping policies and strategies used over the years are reviewed and critically evaluated as to whether they helped or hurt the communities they were designed to support. Current policies will be discussed to evaluate whether they are helping the communities they serve. In alignment with an Indigenous African-centered philosophy of holism, multi-dimensionality, and interconnectedness, this work takes a multilayered approach to storytelling by weaving together three journeys: the author’s personal journey of exploration, the journey of the Black Girl from George Bernard Shaw’s novella (described below), and the reader’s. In it, the author details her understanding of the philosophical framework she learned in professional helping training programs, why she came to believe they were inadequate, and how this sparked her global search to understand how to be an effective helper. The author’s journey is paralleled with the famous and controversial novella by George Bernard Shaw, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God, which is a depiction of the universal search for understanding. This text contrasts this alternative perspective on helping with the dominant approaches to what constitutes “helping.” The protagonist's journey is mirrored by the author’s stories of discovery, and reflective questions are designed to enable the reader’s journey toward becoming a professional helper in the context of current systems. This text explores what helping may look like from an alternative philosophical perspective, seeking to facilitate a process that will enable people to live more satisfyingly. Each chapter offers theoretical underpinnings from an Indigenous African-centered perspective, a critique of dominant approaches to helping, and a different stage of the Black Girl and authors’ paralleled searches for understanding about God and healing, respectively.

Contents:

Part 1 Seeing Things Differently

Chapter 1 The African Forest: The Road Map

Chapter 2 The Missionary: Universalism and Authority

Part 2 Making Past Wisdom Modern

Chapter 3 The Lord of Hosts and Nailer: Sacrifices and Sophistry

Chapter 4 Koheleth and The Greek Scholar: Turning Points

Chapter 5 The Myop: Seeing Things Differently

Part 3 Tools of Reconstruction

Chapter 6 The Cathedral Carriers

Chapter 7 The Knobkerry and the Bible

Chapter 8 Marrying the Irishman: Cultivating the Garden.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9783031885860

3031885864

OCLC:

1523375179