What Is Therapy For? Makungu Akinyela on Building Community and Decolonizing Mental Health
Therapist ConfidentialShow Notes
What is therapy for? For many of us, therapy has been taught as a way to help individuals adapt to the world around them. But what if its deeper purpose is to help people transform that world together?
In this episode of Therapist Confidential, Travis Heath welcomes therapist, educator, activist, and scholar Dr. Makungu Akinyela for a conversation about community, liberation, and the future of mental health. Drawing from his new book, Testimony Therapy: Decolonizing Mental Health for Black Therapists and Clients, Makungu invites us to rethink healing—not as an individual pursuit, but as a collective practice rooted in culture, storytelling, and social justice. Together they explore Testimony Therapy, cultural democracy, decolonization, and why building community may be one of the most important therapeutic acts of our time.
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