Emmada Psychology

Center Meeting the  Need for Culturally Sensitive Therapy

As we enter our 8th year in operation, Emmada’s vision to help clients to overcome long-standing issues and challenges that are preventing them from reaching their full potential in life, continues to be realized.

The Emmada Psychology Center is offering culturally-sensitive services to people and communities of color that have traditionally resisted therapy as a method of healing.

Understanding the Client’s Needs

Providing compassionate mental health services to communities is the focus of Emmada, said Dr. Rick Williamson, a veteran clinical psychologist and the group’s managing partner. 

Williamson says that effective therapy helps clients to better understand their own issues. This understanding, along with encouragement and accountability, results in more effective strategies to reduce their symptoms. He insists that therapists must understand how life situations, particularly socioeconomic, cultural and spiritual beliefs, impact a person’s psyche and well-being.

“Our therapists have provided mental health services in a variety of faith-based, government, community, non-profit and criminal justice settings,” Williamson explained, highlighting his colleague’s use of research-backed therapy that helps directly meet the unique needs of clients.

Partnering to Heal the Community

Mental illness has been a factor in several recent high-profile events that have captured national media attention. Often, the stigma around such an illness can result in a hesitancy to seek treatment.  In addition to direct services, Emmada seeks to work with the community to eliminate the negative perceptions surrounding mental conditions and dispel the belief that seeking treatment is a sign of weakness or a character fault. 

Emmada’s passion is to convey value and respect to clients through its services, treating clients experiencing a wide range of conditions, including mood, anxiety and eating disorders, substance abuse issues and difficulties in establishing relationships

With an emphasis on empowering communities through healing, Emmada is also focused on addressing healthcare disparities.

According to mental health advocates, there is a desperate need for improved cultural awareness and competence in the way treatment is provided. African Americans, who make up a large percentage of the public foster care system, prison inmate and homeless populations, are at a greater risk of developing a mental illness.

“Our goal is to convey compassionate attentiveness to our clients and their families,” Williamson said. “We want to meet their expectations of receiving help. To accomplish this, we will treat them with respect and honor their dignity.”

 The Real Connection Between Ambition And Mental Health

(Huffington Post) -  Previous research supports this connection: A 2010 study found that people who live in developed countries with very high levels of income inequality are three times more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety disorders than people living in developed nations that are more economically uniform.

Countries with particularly large gaps between rich and poor, the new research suggests, may foster cultures of intense striving for wealth and power, in which it's easy for an individual's self-worth to become deeply intertwined with their social status.

We're a culture that tends to define success in terms of money and power. But finding other ways to measure self-worth isn’t just intrinsically worthwhile -- it could help prevent a troubling mental health diagnosis.

How one views social status, including financial status, can predict mental health problems including bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, anxiety and depression, according to a new study from the University of California at Berkeley.

The research, which was published this month in the journal Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, applied the “dominance behavioral system" -- a model used to explain how humans and animals assess their position in social hierarchies -- to 600 young men and women, particularly focusing on their motivation to achieve wealth and power.

Whether they achieved success by these definitions or not, the outcome was dim: A deflated sense of power or disappointment in social standing was associated with a higher risk of depression and anxiety, while excessive striving and ambition meant a higher risk of bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. 

Read more: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/money-power-mental-health_n_6297946.html