thandiwe Dee Watts‑Jones – Healing, Social Justice, Transformation

The beat that drums throughout my work as a writer, psychologist, family therapist, and teacher is passion in the service of healing and liberation. It is my dance.

RECENT BLOG POSTS

We also give ourselves space by not being our own jailers. By granting ourselves compassion, room to be human and imperfect, and to learn over time. To be vulnerable to self-doubt, unraveling, and hurt, to be honest with ourselves and others.…

Self-care: An Act of Liberation

I am grateful that my grief spills in loud sobs now or rants. There was an earlier period of months of murdered Black men and women when I fell numb. Like my feelings had burned to ash.…

Dedicate the Rage, the Grief

Dedicate the Rage, the Grief speaks to using the intense feelings that acts of domination and injustice evoke, to drive acts of liberation and healing. Too often, these overwhelming feelings lead to destruction, resignation or death, which collude with oppression. The events surrounding the pandemic and voting in Wisconsin make clear how imperative it is now to engage in this dedication, a focused and determined action. …

BIO

thandiwe Dee Watts-Jones

Psychologist-Family Therapist | Social Justice Advocate | Writer

thandiwe in PUBLICATIONS

In the months after my mom died, an urge mushroomed inside me. I needed to go back to the begining, to where my ancestors last stood on their land, before the Maafa, the Great Disaster, otherwise known as the Middle Passage. That urge took me to Elmina Castle in Ghana, and forever marred the term castle.

My 85 year old mother, a widow, lived alone in Atlanta, her birth town turned mega city. Increasingly, with every visit I made, the dining and kitchen tables, the floor under the kitchen table and the counters were being swallowed in stacks of paper and folded plastic. I didn't know then, but these were signs of dementia. A reader of the essay, a doctor, wrote in to the NY Times to say this. He was right.