Teen Girls & Bullying

Published May 29, 2019, 7:00 AM
In today’s episode, we're digging into the impact that bullying can have on teenage girls. For this conversation I was joined by De'Asia Thompson, LISW-S, LCSW. De’Asia and I chatted about what bullying looks like for teenage girls today, what therapy might look like for both teens and parents of either a teen being bullied or the one bullying others, and how to interact with school officials if your teen is being bullied.

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for Session one oh nine of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. In today's session, we'll be digging into the impact that bullying can have on teenage girls, how you can tell if a teen in your life is being bullied, and how to respond if you find out your teen is bullying others. But first, let's show some love to our sponsors. Support for today's episode comes from Natural Sious. 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Use our exclusive promo code five five five five five five at checkout to get temper cent off your purchase. Now let's get back to our episode. For today's conversation, I was joined by the Asia Thompson. The Asia is a licensed independent social worker, social work supervisor and professor in Dayton, Ohio. Her practice Rise Counseling Group focuses on the mental wellness of black teen girls and women and other women of color, offering them space to heal and have hope when dealing with anxiety and depression. The ASIA is a firm believer in having the conversation to help clients be released from the junk they carry with them day to day as black women, daughters, sisters, and partners. The Asia and I chatted about what bullying looks like for teen girls today, what therapy might look like for both teens and parents of either a team being bullied or the one bullying others, and how to interact with school officials if your team is being bullied. If you hear anything while listening that really resonates with you, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TPG in session. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, The Asia. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm excited for you to chat with us. You know, so we were talking before we started recording today, just about you know, the incredibly heartbreaking stories that we continue to see related to you, adolescents in teens dying by suicide, and then finding out a lot of the back story around this is then being bullied in schools and in social situations. So I really wanted to take this time to kind of chat about, like what's going on with our tea girls in schools and in their lives, and what kinds of things can we do as the adults in their lives to really kind of help shape some of this behavior. So can you start just by telling us about what are some of the frequent causes of bullying? Like why might we see this in our teens lives? So sometimes we see bullying from the bullies perspective, right, we see that sometimes they have different things going on at home. There's that saying that hurt people, hurt people, and so we sometimes will see that these teens or children are often experiencing different things at home which cause negative emotions. And we know that when we tend to have our own negative emotions, those behaviors can turn outwardly and it can sometimes turn to other people. So we see that a lot when we see teams that are bullying, they may not have folks talking to them and encouraging them at home. They may not have folks, you know, just being a sounding board or someone that they can really express themselves. To when they're having their own negative emotions, and so sometimes we see that they turn not to other teams, and they can take different forms, like the caddy behaviors we see, you know, on social media since that's so big. Now, we'll see like the online bullying now and we may see sometimes physical aggression. So it depends on that teams experience, but yeah, we see it in different forms. So yeah, and what you're kind of talking about made me think about the whole idea of really making sure that we understand developmentally what's going on for teams, right, I mean, because you even see some adults who don't do the best job of you know, handling their emotions and may be acting out in ways that may not be super productive. And so when we think about teams, can you talk a little bit about some of the developmental things that may be going on for them that either make them may be more susceptible to being bullied or being the bullies themselves. Absolutely, so, just an understanding team development first and foremost, a teenager's brain is not fully developed. So if you have a fifteen year old making rash decisions when they're still in kind of like the operational state, meaning they're still can be impulsive, right, And sometimes what that looks like for some teams is that things that we as adults may not see as very urgent or you know, at this stage in the game, for us, it may not seem urgent. To them, it seems very urgent. It seems very important, and so there's a lot of impulsivity and their decision making. It's where it should be developmentally, but it may not necessarily be healthy for them, right. So if they feel bad, then for them, that emotion is so intense and it may lead to them, you know, acting out in a negative manner towards another person because I feel bad that you're gonna feel bad, and it's very impulsive. And sometimes as teams were focused on having a girlfriend or having a boyfriend, those relationships are really important to us at that age, and hanging out, being accepted by our friends, and really trying to figure out who, you know, who they are apart from their parents is what they're facing during this time, and so different social situations may come up in which they have to make, you know, different decisions, and so we see those social situations coming up, and if they're making decisions that are apart from the crowd. Sometimes that can lead to them feeling isolated or feeling like they're being bullied, because then folks can start talking and those relationships change based on the decisions that they're making. And so we see in this stage some of the things that they're facing and some of their emotions and the intensity of their emotions really can't impact their decision making. And I know you work with a lot of teens in your practice, so I'm sure that this has come up for you, probably on both ends, right, like working with teen girls who have experienced being bullied as well as the teens who are maybe doing the bullying. Right, so working on both and a lot of what I work with when I'm working with girls that are being bullied is helping them to understand first and foremost that they're not doing anything wrong, and helping to empower them to understand that they're awesome and sometimes we do have to stand apart, especially if it's related to the social situations, but also helping them to develop a strong sense of self, because I think that's important even into their college years and all of that, Like having that strong sense of self is very important on the end, working with the teams that have bully is really getting into the heart of where are those negative emotions coming from, what's causing them to feel like they have to act outwardly and finding other ways to express their negative emotion. When I worked in residential, I saw a lot of that on both sides, right, because we had girls that were as certain their dominance in in the mil you and then we have the girls that were on the receiving end of that. And so it's a balance to act because you want to affirm everyone, but we also want to get to the heart of the behaviors that help them understand like this is not okay. It's okay to feel upset, It's okay to feel angry, it's okay to feel sad, disappointed, embarrassed, all that. All of that is okay. But we have different ways of handling that. And it doesn't have to include you being physically aggress so towards somebody else. It doesn't have to include you being verbally aggressive towards someone else, And it doesn't have to include you belitteraling someone else, because for one, you may know how that feels. Yeah, and I think you do hear that often, right, that people are a lot of times people who end up bullying have often had the experience of being bullied in the past. Yeah, because we learned that behavior from somewhere. Kids are not in a vacuum right there picking up all of our stuff. They're little sponges from the tiny years on their sponges, and we as parents are teaching them. So sometimes we also have to be mindful of our behaviors in terms of how we even talk to our teams, right, because they model our behaviors and sometimes they also give it back to us, which is not always fun, but they definitely model our behaviors. And so if we're constantly belittling, you know, our own daughters, then that could look out really when they go to school, there's always you know, maybe some belittling being done towards someone else who they made you as being weaker or you know, not as dominant. So we have to also be mindful of that because our kids pick that up from us, and then when they go to school, they also pick up those behaviors other kids. So right, and I think that is really important, right because, like you said, it's not always fun when our little people turn the mirror on us. But it is I think very eye opening to really. Yeah, it is very I opening and realized, like oh my gosh, like they're getting this for me, I probably differently. Yeah, yeah, it makes you aware of what you also as the adult put out you know, into the world and into the atmosphere, like what do I, you know, sound like to my team? And if you notice that the words that you're saying are not always kind and having things, you know, you're going to upset and you're going to have those moments where you're like, oh my gosh, this teenagers driving me crazy. But how you handle that and how you present that to them does make a difference in how they show up in other spaces. So I know that you also work a lot with parents, so you really are kind of doing, you know, kind of work all around the spectrum here. So you work with the teams, but you also work with parents a lot. So I want to hear, like, what kinds of things might you be working with parents on if they do have a team who is being bullied, what kinds of work might you be doing with them? Yeah? So, first a lot of it I work with them around development, so helping them to understand that the developmental stages that their teen or preteen is in and like what to kind of expect from those stages. Another part is really empowering the parents to advocate on behalf of their team. A lot of times teenagers when they are being bullied, they'll talk to their parents about it, but sometimes they don't want their parents to intervene. So helping the parents when they feel helpless in those instances because sometimes the teams they'll say, like, if you know, if you show up to the school, then you know that's gonna make it worse for me, And so helping the parents to kind of navigate the school system, but also knowing that horror boundary, like knowing that line like if this gets crossed, like we're gonna you know, we're gonna work with your team and try to help them, but if this line gets crossed, this is a non negotiable. So helping them to also help their teenager, no teenager preteen to know like, if this line gets crossed, that is a non negotiable. I am going to go to the school, I am going to be talking to other parents, I am going to be talking to administrators, and then also giving them the language around how to talk to those administrators and things, because sometimes I think parents go in and it's all about the emotion. And yes, we care about the emotion and we care about that child feeling. Right. If we didn't, they wouldn't be, you know, coming to see me in therapy. But we also need to be very matter of facts and be very fact based. When you're going into situations where you're advocating and you're dealing with a school district or dealing with the school itself, you have to be very matter of fact. So if you have dates, or if you have instances of the bullying, like when they're occurring, if you can present those things and illustrate a pattern, right, and you're illustrating, Okay, this is what's happening on this date, and this is what happened on this day, and then you're putting the school on notice like I'm this is the date that I you know, maybe reached out and contacted you, nothing has happened. Being able to advocate for your child so that they're able to put a plan in place, like you want things and writing from the school, It's very important to make sure that you're getting that communication on both ends. Where they're understanding like this is a parent that's keeping tract of these things, you know, whatever that looks like on the of the school, they need to be handling their part as well, because we don't want it to escalate to a point where a child or a teenager is thinking that they have to take their own life to escape the situation. Yeah, so you mentioned some really important points in the asia that I just want to make sure we go back to. So one, I think it's really good that you brought out this idea of like letting your team know that there will be a point where it's a non negotiable that we will get the school involved, right, because it feels like that's doing a really good job of letting your team take some initiative and like letting them understand that you do hear them and you want to be sensitive to like how this might disrupt them socially and that kind of thing, but that you're also the adult in the situation, and that you know have being the adult means that you are going to be taking some responsibility and not letting this escalate to a point where it becomes unmanageable. Absolutely, especially when you're dealing with the twins and the teams. You have to be willing to negotiate with your kids. And part of that it's like, Okay, so I hear what you're saying, I'm in your corner, what is it that you need from me? And listening to what they're saying, you know in that, but then also letting them know, Okay, we're able to do this to an extent if it crosses this line, mom or dad, we're gonna be involved. We're gonna be at that school. You need to know that. So then that way the team can also prepare themselves because if it does escalate to a point where mom or dad needs to intervene, then they already know like, okay, well my mom will be up here, you know, and it's something that they've already kind of like made peace with and they know that somebody has their back and that they're gonna be there for them. Yeah. So I think in one way it does like model this idea of safety, like that you know, my parents have my back no matter what. But I wonder if it also could then prevent them from telling you if it's escalating, right, because then they are, you know, afraid of you coming up there and and that kind of thing. So have you seen that also? So yes, But I think it depends on how you in that. You may not want to go full Mama there right. You may not want to, you know, say well, I'm gonna pounce and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. You may want to just let them know, Hey, we're just gonna have a conversation. We just need to know what the next steps are because I can't have you feeling unsafe in school. I don't want you to go to school and feeling like you you know, shouldn't be able to you know, have your class or go have lunch or have friends or you know whatever. So that conversation, the way you have have and frame that conversation may need to look a certain way depending on your kid. You know, you might not be able to be like I'm gonna go and do you know X, Y and Z and make them think that you are gonna you know, be in there. Um kind of almost like the parents that went up to the school and was giving out the butt whooping ticket set up in class and she was you know, so maybe that's not the route, right, although I know there are like, I could empathize with that mom, but maybe that's not the route to go be because I don't know that my team daughter would be like, Okay, mom, you can come up here and do that. She would absolutely be mortified. But having that conversation where okay, so this is my course of action. I'm gonna email, and then if the email isn't working, then I am gonna, you know, have a conversation at the school and we may need to eventually if it escalates, pulling that other kid's parents so that we're all on the same page because this can't continue. So if you are framing it as you know, a conversation and being cool, calm and collected, more than likely your team will say something. But if they know that you may be up there and be you know, full on Mama Bear days, they may be a little bit hesitant. Yeah, right, right, And that does bring me back to the other point that I wanted to make sure that we highlighted when you talked about making sure that you're not so full of emotion when you're like approaching the school district, right, because of course it's your child that is typically when there are high emotions, right, But being like you said, fact based and making sure that you have copies of any emails or text messages that have been sent in a bullying manner like, making sure that you kind of have your case all presented is really a better way to kind of approach them. Absolutely, you want to kind of be like the lawyer, right. You want to be as logical as possible. You want to, you know, illustrate a pattern of behaviors, if you have dates, if you have text messages, if you have emails, if you have any type of like evidence, you know, per se, that's what you want to present to the school because you want to illustrate that there's been a pattern of this behavior. And then yeah, you can you can talk about here's how she has been responding to this. So maybe you know, your team has been withdrawing, or maybe your team has been more tearful, or you know, maybe they're showing signs of you know, depression, or hey, we've been trying to manage this on our own. Here's what we've been experiencing over the past however long. And as a result, my daughter is in therapy now because it's really impact her and we can't have this continue. So you just want to lay it out and make sure that their understanding that just has a consequence and that um, this behavior from the other student or teacher or whoever is bullying, right, it needs to discontinue. And at what point in the asia would you maybe talk with parents about our talk with the team herself about the idea of maybe suicide, right, Because I think, you know, we often talk about like not being shy about asking that question, and that just because you ask about it doesn't mean that you're introducing this idea. But because we are seeing so much more in terms of adolescents and teens dying by suicide, I think a lot of parents think, oh, well, my child probably doesn't even know anything about that, right, And then unfortunately it's too late when you know, So when would you encourage parents or when would you even have the conversation with the team herself about suicide? In working with teams, I assessed regularly, especially if I'm dealing with a team who is struggling with depression. Right, So I assessed regularly. You know, when you do your initial intakes and you know, kind of getting to know your team and building rapport with your clients and stuff. I definitely think it's a question that you want to ask, and part of it is also making the parents comfortable to ask, because just like you said, some parents believe that if you are asking a question, that you're actually introducing this idea, when that's not the case. If they're constantly you know, discussing not feeling hopeful, feeling like they're in pain, things like that, then I will dive into that what does that look like for them? And really just flat out ask the question, are you thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about taking your own life and being bold? And that is really important because it less the client or the team no that, Okay, somebody's paying attention to me. Somebody is paying attention to what I'm saying. And then if we can work to just kind of increase their hopefulness and decrease some of that pain feeling, you know, helping them feel um, you know, identify things that they are hopeful for for the future and making sure that they're staying in that place where they are, you know, finding things to be hopeful for for the future, and then decreasing some of that pain. So how can we you know, find healthy coping skills? What other things can we do to kind of increase their you know, not not necessarily pleasure, but um decreasing that pain that they're feeling. That is that's how I go about it. But I assessed regularly, and I asked, especially when my teams come in and they have been struggling with depression. It's something that we regularly talk about, and it lessens over time as they're able to demonstrate more and more that they are more hopeful, they are expressing, you know, more feelings of happiness and contentment, and they are able to verbalize positive things about themselves. Right, So yeah, it'll decrease, you know more, but it's still you know, a regular thing that I assessed for got it, and so I do want to hear also on the other side of the spectrum, how you might work with parents when they find out their team is the Boody, Because I think that that is a different dynamics, So what might the work look like they're so in working with the parents helping them to understand that, you know, once again, kids don't exist in the vacuum. And so whenever I'm doing any type of like team or preteen work, I do require that the parents have some involvement. It doesn't necessarily have to be a family session every single week, but they need to understand that kids don't exist in a vacuum, meaning that they're not individualized enough for this stuff to come up on their own. So parents have to be involved in that process, you know. I let them know, like you can't just drop your kid off and like peace out and then come and pick a backup. You have to be involved in that therapeutic process. Whether that looks like maybe we have a family session, um, depending on the severity of the case, but um, you know, maybe we'll have a family session every other week, or maybe we're having a monthly family sessions in educating the parents, helping them to understand what to look for in their own kids and then what to be aware of their relationships with their kids. So helping parents to see, Okay, let's talk about where this is coming from. And depending on the age of the team, there's only so much I can disclose, which is a lot of family sessions are helpful and so much as we can get out some of the underlying maybe family issues that that team is feeling or that they you know, feel like it's contributing to their own behaviors. We can kind of get that out in family sessions. So the family work is really important to me as a part of that, because kids just don't wake up one day and just decidn't some believe everybody has school, That's not what's happening. So it's important for parents to be involved and making sure that they're engaged in the therapeutic process as well. Yeah, and I would imagine that there may be for some parents some resistance to the idea of thinking that their child is a bully, Right, how did you work with that? Like people who may be in some denial in some ways about what's actually happening with their teams, So educating them on what bullying is, so doing the psycho education around just bullying in general, being very objuctive with it, not necessarily pulling their team into it, but being objective with it, and then helping them to understand where their team's behaviors fit in with that so they may not see it any more. Like parents, it is hard to be like, Okay, my kid is a bully, because then they kind of feel like it's a reflection on them. And helping them to understand that this is still all a learning process for everybody involved. No parent has all the answers, even me as a parent, I don't have all the answers, And so sometimes it just takes up her person too, you know, on the outside looking and to kind of give you an objective view of your parents and but then also that team's behavior um and helping them to see like just where they are, but then also helping them in terms of them being resistant, like helping them understand that this is not something that you can't not come back from, right, so like there's absolutely redemption, Like you can change your parenting techniques, you can change the way that you talk to your kids. These things are manageable and workable, and so helping them understand that, because I think sometimes parents think like if their kid is a problem, they sometimes feel defeated. And they don't have to feel defeated in that we just might need to address a few things and we may need to just try to practice some different ways of talking to our kids and how we interact with our kids. And so sometimes it takes un learning of certain behaviors and helping the parents understand like we're all just trying to learn and it doesn't make your bad parents, it doesn't make your bad per say, and it doesn't make that kid bad. Right, That's not what we're trying to say. We're just trying to say, hey, these behaviors are not okay and making it about the behaviors more so than them as a person. M hmm. And that feels like that would be important for both the teen and for their parents, right, because it feels like it would be a really delicate balance to UM, which is why it sounds like the different iterations of what therapy might look like when you're working with the whole family would be important because you also don't want UM the whole session to be about like trying to make the parents feel better, right, and then the kid gets us again. Um, you know, so having sessions probably with just the teen, and then maybe with just parents, and then poor sessions it sounds like a really good idea. Yeah, yes, a lot, yes, a lot. So, Yeah, the individual sessions are important, and then you have the UM like educational parenting kind of training sessions helping them to understand things and they are doing that combo work. Yeah, got it. And do you have the asia any ideas about like what kinds of things you know, maybe even school wide we should be thinking about in terms of just decreasing the numbers that we see in terms of kids being bullied in school. Do you have ideas about like what could schools be doing so? I think, um, I think schools just in terms of talking about it, for one, is helpful just making sure that students are understanding what that means. Some schools have different programs that they put into place, so like if kids are feeling isolated or feeling like they don't have any plans. I know some schools have it where you can like go and sit, you know, on this bench and people will you know, come up to you and talk to you, um like no questions, act like if you are just feeling you know, lonely or you know whatever. Though they have some different things like that, but I think really bring attention to it. And I think as far as like teachers are concerned, I think teachers have to also be mindful. Administrators also have to be mindful. Being in schools is high stress and so sometimes what teachers can give off and what administrators can give off and sometimes um, being negative you know, negatively received by the kids and teams and so that also impacts them. So we just have to really look holistically at all the different systems, so family, schools, other systems that they may interact with, and you know, try to do our best to really just work on being kind to other people. It's really important. And when teachers are noticing or if a student is telling you that they're feeling like they're being bullied, really you know, talking to them about that and advocating on the behalf of those students. You know, you have school counselors and stuff in place as well, so utilizing UM the folks that are in the positions, but they also have to advocate and make sure that they're doing their part to make sure kids aren't feeling bad when they're going to school, because no kid deserves to feel like they don't belong right right. Good ideas. So you mentioned this a little briefly, and I want us to kind of just touch on this um a little more before we wrap up. Just the idea that you know, like when I was in school, bullying might look like, you know, somebody telling you you can't sit at this table, or somebody passing a note around about you. That kind of thing. Whereas now, given all the technology and social media that teams may have access to, it goes far beyond just the normal school day. Right. So now people are you know, filling people's comments sections with different disparaging comments and all of that. So, how have you seen and how has maybe your work change now with the advent of social media and bullying continuing there. So social media has kind of termed bullying like upside down. It's it's gotten too a place where um, because folks are focused on having the lights and they're equating that with their self value and self worth. It has it has really changed the landscape of bullying. Um, just because especially like the teams that are utilized on social media, there's a lot of stock being put into what's being said online with Snapchat and i G and um, although a lot of I don't know if a lot of teams are using Facebook as much. I think that's for us, um older folks, but um, but especially with those like I know, with the Snapchat, that's that's a biggie because you know they snap, you know, you snap, make the snap and then it goes away and so then you know, so people are feeling a little bit more embolded to say things or to do things online because they're thinking it's gonna go away, nobody's gonna see it. Um, But people do see that stuff. And so it's made it a little bit harder. Um. For one, because we we kind of live in a in an age where I do believe that you know, our teams kind of need their phones, right, they need that communication to be able to uh so parents can have contact with them. Um. When I was growing up, we didn't have you know, we didn't have the cell phones and stuff we got into that. You know, we would come home from school, get to the house, call our parents or you know whatever. And so now, um, just times are a little bit different. And so I do think that there is value in our teams being able to communicate with us, you know, um a little bit quicker. Um. But with that, um, we still have to be mindful and monitor what our kids are consuming. And so with social media, it's made it where you have to you know, you have to be you know, you have to know what your kids are consuming. So you need to know if I can have Snampchat or I g having these things, um, and parents are needing to put more boundaries in place, right, because um, sometimes they just don't even need access to that stuff. And when they don't have access to it, it's a little bit better in terms of their anxiety around it and the you know, possibility of being bullied because if I don't see it, then you know, I may not even know it unless somebody else says it. But um, having that quick access to hurt for comments, it can be harmful to the team. Yeah, And I think that that's one of those other things where you're thinking about like how your team may feel very anxious about like having a disruption to their social media, right, Like if you tell them like, Okay, this is really harmful, I think we need to kind of close this down for some time or whatever. That they may really resist against that because they want to be connected and what's gonna happen and you know, even though it is also causing them pain. Yeah, yeah, and so talking to so I think you know, part of it is as the parents talking to your teen about that and really setting those guidelines so once so just like with the mom of their situation and going up to the school and all of that, you know, talking to them if their experience and the online bullying and you're getting wind of it. Hey, this is not okay. You know, if I'm allowing you to use this, this needs to be used in a certain way. If you're experiencing on your end, you need to you know, speak up and tell me. And then also setting those expectations for your own kids not to do those behaviors. So supportant to set the expectations on both ends, because we don't want to give our kids the you know, the thought that it's okay for them to be means other kids either, um. And so having expectations around social media is really important. And then you know, also recognizing that social media has a guidelines. Now whether or not you, as a parent you to follow that is your on personal choice, but there are guidelines around what's age appropriate for you know, teenagers, and so if your kid is under the age, I would suggest not even introducing social social media to them until you feel like they're mature enough to really handle the responsibility um of having social media. You So, what are some of your favorite resources for some of the things that we've talked about today, d Asia, Some of the things you find yourself recommending over and over so um in terms of bullying. UM. I really liked Stop Bullying dot gov. It gives a lot of different resources for parents, UM, for teams and you just kind of UM how to navigate different situations UM Their team Self is another book that UM and there's a journal with it as well, but the book itself, helping teams be able to just like navigate these different UM UM situations that they encounter is really helpful. And I think in terms of building positive self esteem and positive mental health and helping UM team girls kind of you know, learn to learn about themselves more so that is that has been helpful UM for me UM and then for parents UM. Like I said, I do a lot of education around just like development, so I kind of I get into you know, ericson and you know the different like actual stages of development and what to expect um so, and there's some different UM charts and different things like that that you can use to kind of UM learn about where folks are in their stages of development and understanding some of the behaviors that go along with that. UM. So those have been very helpful to me in terms of working with UM team girls and then also working with parents perfect and all of that information would of course be included in the show, so people can find that easily. And where can people find you? Where are you online? Your website as well as any social media handles you want to share. So my UM my private practice website is Rise Counseling Group dot com. I am located in Dayton, Ohio, and UM we primarily work with women of color and teams of color, UM dealing with anxiety and depression related to like you said, bullying, but a host of other issues. But we UM work primarily, like I said, with women of color and team girls of color. So I have two I G s Rise Counseling day In and D Thompson l I s W S is my other I G. You can also find me on Facebook at Rise Counseling day In, which is just for Rise Counseling Group. And then the other one is UM D Thompson l I s W on Facebook one I G. Remember it's D Thompson l I s W S. And then on Facebook is D Thompson l I s W Got it, yeah, And then UM the Asia Thompson dot com is my UM personal website. Sat you okay, and that all again will be in the show. Notes for anybody who's driving up, couldn't take any notes. Okay, Well, thank you so much for joining us today, d Ag. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me Joy, It's been a pleasure. I'm so thankful the Asia was able to share her expertise with us today. To find more information about her and the resources that she shared, visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash Session one oh nine, And don't forget to show some support for our sponsor for this episode, natural Sious. Natural Sious is the world else first vegan high performance hair care line that delivers the results of twelve products and only three. You can find the products and over twelve sally Sores nationwide, and you can also get ten percent off your purchase online by going to sally Beauty dot com and using the promo code five five five five five five at checkout. Remember that if you're searching for a therapist in your area, check out our directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash directory. And if you want to continue this conversation with other sisters who listen to the podcast, come on over and join us in the Thrive Tribe, which is the Facebook group for our community. You can request to join at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Tribe and be sure to answer the three questions that are asked to gain entry. Don't forget to visit our online store at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Shop, where you can find our guided affirmation track, break up journal, and your favorite Therapy for Black Girls t shirts and mug Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care, what what? What's

Therapy for Black Girls

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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