Black Woman Therapist
My name is Yema Ferreira, I am Angolan, and I am a healer, psychotherapist, and life coach. My mission is to spiritually liberate black and African people around the world and to be part of the movement to heal the collective trauma of black people and people of African descent related to slavery, colonization, and neo-colonialism. Part of this process is to retrieve our History – our individual personal histories, our family and community histories, our national histories and, importantly, our pre-colonial history as a People.
People often ask me how I came to the work I do today. I always find it hard to answer this question because there isn’t a clear before and after for me. Nothing happened that made me “decide” to become a therapist, to work with black women specifically, or to take an ancestral approach to my work. It all came from within in a process of unfoldment that gradually took me deeper and deeper into my calling, culminating in my current work. I believe that this process is ongoing and continuous, and that my work will continue to evolve. And I will continue to answer the call as best I can.
I’ve known from a very early age that I am here to work therapeutically with people, helping them heal the wounds of the past. I wasn’t sure as a child what kind of education that would require or what sort of career it would translate to, but when the time came to choose the subject of my studies, psychology felt like a match to this inner calling. Over a period of a decade, a journey of deepening my black consciousness, discovering psychotherapy as my path within the field of psychology, and being initiated into African spirituality all blended together to create my approach to healing.
I have a bachelor’s in psychology from Temple University in Philadelphia (USA), a certificate in Psychotherapy and Counselling from Regents University London, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy and Counselling from the same university.
I was formerly a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) but decided subsequently to detach myself from this and other professional bodies as I did not find them to be supportive of my chosen approach, path, or target group. I do, however, continue to uphold the BACP code of ethics..
My professional roots are in the women’s movement, working as a counsellor for women survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse. I worked for a community organisation called Women Organized Against Rape, Philadelphia’s official Rape Crisis Centre, doing crisis counselling for rape survivors on a help line and hospital emergency room (A&E). I also worked for the Bilingual Domestic Violence Project, in another Philadelphia organisation, providing domestic violence counselling on an individual and group basis for women experiencing or recovering from domestic violence.
In other capacities which involved using my organising and facilitating skills, I worked for the Angolan network of women’s organisations, Rede Mulher, a refuge for women fleeing domestic violence situations in Denmark, and an HIV testing and counselling point for minorities in Denmark.
In the UK, as a counsellor/psychotherapist, I worked with migrant women who experienced various forms of Violence Against Women, such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, and trafficking, to name a few. I have also helped diverse clients through trauma, depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, coping with a chronic illness among other difficulties.
As a black and African woman in the psychotherapeutic and coaching worlds, I have been very aware of the great insufficiencies in addressing the specific needs of black women, and I have made it my mission to fill that gap. Click below to learn more about how I work.
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