l came across Dr. Akomolafe’s profile on Facebook about a seminar he was planning on giving therapy service providers titled “Where Do We Go When Healing Becomes Ill? Navigating the Empire of Trauma”. After connecting with his website, I was incredibly impressed with his background and the life journey that shaped whom he has become today. I asked if he was open to conversation, and I was thrilled when he accepted my invitation. The mission of this conversation was to discuss the role of African traditional belief systems in influencing the perceptions of the approach and the management of mental illness. Also, it brings the importance of mental health awareness to African immigrant communities in the diaspora.
During our conversation, Dr. Akomolafe talked about his family background and how his circumstantial reference to losing his father at a young age has some influence on whom he has become today. He talked about his educational background and how earning his PhD in clinical psychology in Nigeria shaped his understanding of traditional African belief systems as it relates to mental health. We discussed the possibility of integrating conventional African practices with Western mental health care since mental health care is openly discussed globally. For a therapist who may be working with a client who is an African immigrant, Dr. Akomolafe advises on how this therapist can navigate the intersection of traditional beliefs and modern psychological practices. Dr. Akomolafe has written award-winning books and co-authored some other books. We discussed two of his books, “These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home” and “We Will Tell Our Own Story: The Lion of Africa Speaks”.
A short-form biography of Dr. Bayo Akomolafe Reviewed
Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea Aanya and Kyah Jayden Abayomi, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, post-humanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network, a planet-wide initiative that seeks to convene communities in new ways in response to the critical, civilizational challenges we face as a species. He hosts the post-activist course/festival/event, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains.’ He currently lectures at Pacifica Graduate Institute, California. He sits on the Board of many organizations including Science and Non-Duality (US) and Ancient. Futures (Australia).
In July 2022, Dr. Akomolafe was appointed the inaugural Global Senior Fellow of the University of California’s (Berkeley) Othering and Belonging Institute. He is also the inaugural Special Fellow of the Schumacher Centre for New Economics, the Inaugural Scholar in Residence for the Aspen Institute, the inaugural Special Fellow for the Council of an Uncertain Human Future, and a Visiting Scholar at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA (2024). He has been a Fellow for The New Institute in Hamburg, Germany, and a Visiting Critic-in Residence for the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles (2023). He received an Honorary Doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and has been a Commencement Speaker at two university convocation events. He also received the New Thought Leadership Award 2021 and the Excellence in Ethnocultural Psychotherapy Award at the African Mental Health Summit 2022. Dr. Akomolafe is a Member of the Club of Rome, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in the UK, and an Ambassador for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
For further information
www.bayoakomolafe.net
www.emergencenetwork.org