February is Black History Month. Black History Month was formally established under president Gerald Ford in 1976 with an interest to preserve and celebrate the contributions and achievements of black Americans and as a time to reflect upon events significant to the African-American experience in America.

So what is Racism?

Throughout our shared human history, there are always stories of people undergoing powerful and profound changes following exposure to unprecedented events and after confrontation with new realities.

In literature, the humanities, and throughout religious traditions, we as a species seem particularly struck by the significance of the change that happens in response to transformative experience.

I spend a lot of time in my car, driving around the city to my client's homes. Some days, the streets are oddly quiet, and a heaviness hangs in the air. It's odd how dark and cold it can seem when you are alone on the inside of a car on a hot sunny summer day, separated from the rest of the world by layers of metal, plastic, and glass, breathing in artificial cold air.

On these days, my behavior changes. My energy fades and I quietly fantasize about going home to nap alone in my bed. Keyword: alone. I eat poorly, quickly, and alone. I tend to become more irritable and much less patient- with traffic, strangers, and even my clients. This undoubtedly impacts my clients, as I breathe my own brokenness and loneliness into their homes and their mirror neurons work overtime to make sense of why their therapist is different today. I become guarded, worried I might be "called out" for not being on my game today. When the darkness passes, I recognize this as shame: an emotion that for me, and I believe many others, grows wildly in the toxic soil of isolation and disconnection from others. It's an illusion; the great majority of people in my world- whether it be clients, family, friends, or complete strangers- genuinely care and want me to be well. The judgement is a cognitive error in my own head.

1912 marked the release of Alfred Adler’s first major work, the Neurotic Constitution. A blending of philosophy, evolutionary ecology, and biology, the Neurotic Constitution would serve as a bold and compelling counterpoint to both Emil Kraepelin’s medicalized approach to psychopathology as well as Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic view.