Jennifer Shepard Payne - Out of the Fire: Healing Black Trauma Caused by Systemic Racism Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

With Out of the Fire , Jennifer Shepard Payne provides a timely, empirically and spiritually based, and much-needed approach toward understanding and addressing the mental health issues experienced by Black Americans daily. Each chapter provides clarity in understanding through culturally responsive empathy. This research-based text rebukes old paradigms, shares practical and clever points of reflection, while offering nuanced strategies toward healing.

Cheryl Fields-Smith, PhD , professor of elementary education at the University of Georgia

It is the rare scholar and practitioner that integrates research, empathy, warmth, and care together to help communities transform and heal. Jennifer Shepard Paynes Out of the Fire exemplifies such characteristics. Every therapist, counselor, and counselee should read and learn from Shepard Paynes skillful guidance in this book to help support healing in the Black community and diaspora. This is a much-needed work.

Regina Chow Trammel, PhD, LCSW , professor of social work at Azusa Pacific University, psychotherapist, and author of A Counselors Guide to Christian Mindfulness

In Out of the Fire , Jennifer Shepard Payne provides practical and thoughtfully described tools for developing the skills to thrive after we deal with the trauma of structural and systemic racism. Out of the Fire includes a wealth of stories and examples that helps humanize the challenges we face. Despite being a book about dealing with trauma, Out of the Fire provides asset-based and positive tools to promote healing and well-being.

Derek M. Griffith, PhD, founder and codirector of the Racial Justice Institute, and professor of health management and policy at Georgetown University

Jennifer Shepard Payne provided a rich and detailed explanation of racialized trauma and the strategy for mitigating the effects through acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). This book makes the case for why ACT is a therapy that would appeal to the Black community. Through analogies and stories grounded in research, Out of the Fire will be a game changer for those that care about mental health and well-being, especially in the Black community.

Tahira Reid Smith, PhD , cofounder of Black in Engineering

In Out of the Fire , Jennifer Shepard Payne provides a culturally informed, evidence-based, and highly practical guide to thriving that will be life-changing for generations of African Americans and the mental health professionals who support their healing. She has brilliantly tailored ACT to speak the language and reflect the lived experiences of the African American community!

Robyn L. Gobin, PhD , licensed psychologist, associate professor at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and coauthor of The Black Womans Guide to Overcoming Domestic Violence

All suffering is not created equal. A powerful and much-needed resource that speaks directly to the unique experiences of Black Americans. Sharing a combination of compelling personal stories, case vignettes, and experiential practices, Jennifer Shepard Payne guides readers to develop the skills necessary to rise from the ashes of systemic oppression, intergenerational trauma, and pain. Out of the Fire is THE guide for learning to thrive with meaning and purpose.

Jill Stoddard, PhD , author of Be Mighty , and coauthor of The Big Book of ACT Metaphors

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

NEW HARBINGER PUBLICATIONS is a registered trademark of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

New Harbinger Publications is an employee-owned company.

Copyright 2022 by Jennifer Shepard Payne

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

All Rights Reserved

Cover design by Amy Daniel; Acquired by Georgia Kolias; Edited by Diedre Hammons

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Payne, Jennifer Shepard, author.

Title: Out of the fire : healing black trauma caused by systemic racism using acceptance and commitment therapy / Jennifer Shepard Payne, PhD, LCSW.

Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022029861 | ISBN 9781684039883 (trade paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Acceptance and commitment therapy. | Racism--Psychological aspects. | African Americans--Psychology. | Post-traumatic stress disorder--Treatment. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) | PSYCHOLOGY / Movements / Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Classification: LCC RC489.A32 P39 2022 | DDC 616.85/21008996073--dc23/eng/20220816

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022029861

To my God, the wind beneath my wings.

To my entire village, past and present, who shaped, taught, supported, and collaborated with me. You know who you are.

Through you, I rise like a phoenix out of flames to help pull others out of the fire.

Contents

Preface

Im sick of shifting. Im sick of dancing to-and-fro, slithering between Afro and mainstream mentalities,

Sliding on the attire of appropriateness.

At home in my robe of Blackness in Black spaces and wearing the cloak of conventionalism in white spaces.

The camouflage is too tight for me. It chokes me at the neckline.

I. Cant. Breathe.

But Ive assimilated, though! Ive standardized myself, conformed myself. Ive whittled myself down to become non-threatening in non-Black spaces! I have attained! I have arrived!

But what have I attained?

I have attained doctorates and education upon education. Yet I am Still. Not. Accepted.

By reason of the color of my skin, I too can die daily.

Through circumstantial combination of place and police officer

Gawking, staring, glaring me down, positioning me on the curb, down low

Lower to the ground than the posture of prayer

Making me bow and kneeland then kneeling on me

Knee on my essence, suppressing, squeezing

Until I remember the love of my moms embrace long gone

Until my breath stops.

I have been on that curb. I have been interrogated, humiliated, embarrassed.

I have been pulled to that curb by police officers, unsettled and restless

I have been humiliated by cops. Did you hide it in your coochie?

As if he desired to dig in sacred spaces, to reach and grab from my essence.

Always abiding by societys edicts, structures, standards.

Yet coochie-threatened on a curb on a dark secluded street.

I have been brought down low to the curb at school, teased by white peers

While studying doctoral things, lofty ideas, high notions, astute ideas

Asked in a mixed company, Do you know Homey the Clown?

While presenting at a conference with white colleagues,

Peach-faced hotel patron asks me, Take my bags to my car.

In the midst of proper introductions, I am Dr., earned from UCLA

Having my hair touched without permission by white, wrinkled hands.

While teaching with purpose, heart, focus, fervor, frivolous faculty evals downgrade me to knowing nothing by biased beings.

I have been on that curb. I keep being brought back to that curb. Despite the shifting.