L~rd knows we Black folk have our issues with institutional healthcare - mental health especially included. It's very encouraging to see these days that we have more Black, and male-identifying, mental health professionals creating safer spaces for us to access healing.

White western psychology often pathologizes our mental health needs. With Black practitioners we are able to understand our experiences in more proper contexts. Our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors are all shaped by culture, family, relationships, trauma, oppression, survival strategies, and more ... that made sense at one time. Healing occurs along the way as we understand our patterns, and adjust as needed.

candi dugas collective does not diagnose or treat mental health imbalance. Rather, we help support your healing process with tools that can help with clarity, naming, reframing, rebalancing:

• naming cognitive patterns
• understanding nervous system responses
• distinguishing between what can be worked through creatively and what requires professional care

We help educate, provide safer containers + tools for reflection, and share referrals to other practitioners for optimum support. It all lives side by side here.

This page is also a bridge. For those navigating experiences along the outer edges of various spectrums (anxiety, depression, too much work, overwhelm, etc.), we offer language, frameworks, and resources to help you decide your next best step. That next best step could be therapy, rest, creative processing, or other types of technologies.

Explore how the following resources can help you heal mentally/psychologically, and tap the buttons that resonate with you the most:

• Licensed Therapists, trained to work with the mind in structured, evidence-based ways, help you heal mentally/psychologically by working with the structures of your mind:
  • thought patterns
  • beliefs
  • memory processing
  • meaning-making
  • identity
  • behavior
  • This is distinct from emotional healing, which focuses more on balancing your experiences + managing them as you sense them rather than engaging in evidence-based structures. 
• Meditations specifically focused on decision making are clutch for mental + psychological balance because they strengthen your mind’s capacity for clarity, agency, coherence, and trust in oneself.