Melanated Women’s Health

Psalm McDaniels is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Philadelphia, who is passionate about providing affirming care to the BIPOC and LGBTQ communities. Psalm will aim to help you understand how parenting you received and cultural norms influence you challenges with setting boundaries in various relationships.

If you are struggling to set boundaries in your family, social, or professional relationships, Psalm can help you honor your needs for safety and independence. She contributed her expertise on boundary setting in relationships for a WonderMind article, which focused on identifying whether your boundaries are helpful or hurtful to you and the people in your life.

Psalm is also a good fit for your individual therapy needs if you are a college student or adult who want to work towards healing childhood trauma, exploring changes to your identity, or adjusting to a life transition which have led to symptoms for depression or symptoms for anxiety.

As a Black Therapist, Psalm understands how hard it can be to admit you now need help because of mental health stigma in the BIPOC community.

Psalm is understanding of the many reasons that can cause you to feel stuck or engage in behaviors that sabotage your ability to achieve your goals. She will help you understand how past trauma such as being cared for by an emotionally immature or emotionally neglectful parent can be contributing to conflicts with your family of origin and body image or self-esteem problems.

Though Psalm is trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy, her therapy for self-esteem techniques are grounded in self-love, self-care, and holistic mental wellness from a social justice lens. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Psalm helps clients increase their level of tolerance for coping with difficult emotions, to become a confident author of their life story.

Psalm has a Bachelors in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2014, and a Masters of Social Services and certificate in Social Work and Law, from Bryn Mawr College School of Social Work and Social Research in 2018. She is a former Therapist at the UPENN Counseling and Psychological Services, and completed a fellowship in Bryn Mawr college’s Counseling Center. She also has four years of volunteer experience as a crisis counselor for Women Organized Against Rape.

Psalm McDaniels provides in-person Individual Therapy in Philadelphia on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Telehealth (aka Online Therapy or Virtual Therapy) on weekdays.

Florence Mungo is an African-American Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania, with extensive experience providing trauma therapy to young people and adults in community mental health settings.

Florence is also a French speaking therapist.

If you identify as Black, Person of Color, or Immigrant and answer “yes” to any of the following questions, Florence is a good fit for your individual therapy:

Do you have sleep problems or struggle to relax? Are you feeling overwhelmed by stress? Are you struggling with adjustment to a new phase of life? Do you want to start healing from trauma? Do you have negative beliefs about yourself such as, “I’m not good enough”?

Florence provides compassionate culturally sensitive trauma therapy because she understands how race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and immigration status, can influence the way you cope with lived experiences. Her trauma informed therapy techniques are multicultural, collaborative, and centered in the theory of attachment. She uses the therapeutic relationship and her nurturing personality, to help clients with trauma healing.

Many people often think trauma is only caused by violent crimes, acts of physical abuse, or natural disasters. They may also think because trauma happened a long time ago, it does not affect them in the present. These are a few of the myths about trauma. There are many types of traumas such as the sudden or unexpected death of a loved one, bullying, retaliation in the workplace, neglect from parents, infidelity, intimate partner violence, the witnessing of domestic violence and more. Florence provides EMDR therapy for many types of trauma that occur in childhood and adulthood.

Florence is accepting new clients for online therapy in Philadelphia, on weekdays.

Nicola Pierre-Smith is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Pennsylvania and Delaware who provides culturally affirming therapy and trauma informed workshops to Employee Resource Groups. As an immigrant and Black mental health expert, Pierre-Smith knows how hard it can be to overcome stigma and shame to ask for help with your mental health in the community and workplace settings.

Pierre-Smith is aware that it is especially hard for people from the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) community to go to therapy because of cultural norms and the preference to talk to friends, family, or religious leaders. With this in mind, Pierre-Smith created Melanated Womens Health, LLC in 2019 to provide a culturally affirming therapy space that is both inclusive and accessible for melanated individuals and Therapists with intersecting identities.

Pierre-Smith understands that the intersections of a person’s identities (for example race, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation, etc) influence how they engage with the world. She offers Individual Therapy for trauma using Internal Family Systems (IFS) informed Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

She also provides Individual Therapy to people struggling in an interracial or multicultural relationship, experiencing symptoms for anxiety or depression due to workplace micro-aggressions, and reproductive justice concerns.

Significantly, Pierre-Smith provides mental health workshops and makes guest appearances in the media as a Black mental health expert. Individual and corporate clients who work with Pierre-Smith report increased awareness for the impact of Racism Based Stress on wellness, and increased confidence to promote employee mental health practices that are trauma informed in the workplace.

Pierre-Smith has a wide range of leadership, clinical, and workshop facilitation skills. She has contributed to mental health workshop and events for many brands, was the Director of a Children and Youth behavioral health agency, and a Clinical Coordinator providing therapy to boys and men who were in the criminal justice system.

In terms of her background, Pierre-Smith attended universities in Jamaica and America. She also completed trainings in Clinical Supervision and Transgender Education at Temple University. Outside of clinical practice, Pierre-Smith offers clinical supervision for the PA State Board licensing, and enjoys helping licensed social workers or those with ambition to become a Licensed Professional Counselor over overcome Imposter Syndrome.