helping?: a search to understand healing from an indigenous african-centered perspective

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.

Dr. Gillian Berry has over forty years of social work experience as a practitioner, educator, consultant, and author. She obtained her Masters and Doctoral degrees from Birmingham University in England. She is currently a senior adviser at Stepped Care Solutions in Canada, a company focused on guiding the transformation of mental health systems to be more effective and restorative. She has previously taught at the University of Botswana’s Department of Social Work Southern Africa and at the University of Maryland. Dr. Berry also previously worked as a director of a post-secondary college counselling center and in several Departments of Social Services as a clinical supervisor and facilitator, and is a trained mediator for the State of Maryland. She presents at conferences nationally and internationally on professional social work practice, public child welfare, culturally appropriate practice, and personal/self-improvement. She has published book chapters in edited books as well as published the empowerment novel, The Righteous Sin, and the children’s book I Am Everything.