Bridges and Boundaries Counseling Services

02/21/2026

This is a great video about OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder actually has several forms and somewhat rarely conforms to the hand-washing, organized, germophobe stereotype we see on TV. This video is focused on moral scrupulosity OCD and really nails a commonly reccomended strategy for combating all kinds of obsessive/intrusive/ perseverating thoughts.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1GavGdfzT1/

02/20/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February. Today we spotlight Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark, a pathbreaking psychologist whose research helped desegregate schools in the United States. Over a three-decade career, Dr. Clark researched child development and racial prejudice in ways that not only benefitted generations of children but changed the field of psychology.

Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark grew up in the Jim Crow South, went to segregated elementary schools, and witnessed the violence of racism firsthand. In 1934, Clark graduated high school and went on to Howard University on a merit scholarship. . Despite knowing she would have difficulty finding a job as an African American woman in the field of psychology, she studied it and graduated magna cm laude with a B.A. in Psychology in 1938.

When she began her Masters, Clark was influenced by the NAACP law office’s work and the work she did at an all-African American nursery school. Her Master’s Thesis, “The Development of Consciousness in Negro Pre-School Children,” explored issues of race and child development. In 1940, Clark began a Ph.D. in Psychology at Columbia University. Clark became the first African American woman to graduate Columbia with a Ph.D. in 1943.

In one of her first post-graduate jobs she was the testing psychologist at the Riverdale Home for Children where she observed a lack of services for African American children in Harlem. She and her husband started the Northside Center for Child Development in 1946; it was the first and only organization in the city that provided mental health services to African American children. Clark ran Northside until her retirement in 1979; the center continues today.

Based on her graduate research, Clark conceived of and implemented “The Doll Test” in the 1940s. While history books credit her husband with “The Doll Test,” he even said “the record should show [it] was Mamie’s primary project that I crashed. I sort of piggybacked on it.”

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mamie-phipps-clark

02/18/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February. Today's spotlight is Francis C. Sumner.
Having been educated at home, at 15 Sumner passed a written exam to be accepted to Lincoln University. Subsequently Sumner was accepted to Clark's undergraduate program where he ultimately received his second Bachelor's Degree in English.

Then, in the fall of 1916, Sumner returned to Lincoln University as a graduate student and a German professor. While at Lincoln, Sumner recognized that he wanted to advance in psychology, so he began to look at different Graduate schools. Sumner then earned his M.A. in June of 1917; he was accepted at Clark and awarded a senior scholarship in psychology. In 1918, he served in the United States Military during World War I. Sumner remained in France until 1919, traveling throughout Europe. Sumner returned to Clark and, in 1920, began his doctoral dissertation, "Psychoanalysis of Freud and Adler." That same day, his thesis was accepted.

On June 14, 1920, Francis Cecil Sumner became the first Black person to receive a Ph.D. degree in psychology. Sumner's first teaching job was at Wilberforce University as a professor of philosophy and psychology in the fall of 1920. In the summer of 1921, he also taught at Southern University in Louisiana. In 1921, Sumner accepted a position at West Virginia Collegiate Institute. He influenced many great psychologists including Kenneth B Clarke. After seven years of being on the staff and writing many controversial articles involving the criticisms of colleges and universities and their treatment of African Americans and endorsing views of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington, Sumner resigned on August 31, 1928.

Sumner left West Virginia, attended Howard University, and became the acting chairman of the psychology department.

02/16/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February. Today we are spotlighting Herman George Canady, PhD, a foundational black psychologist.He was a clinical and social psychologist and earned all his degrees from Northeastern University. He is most known for being the first psychologist to study how the race of the test proctor may create bias in IQ testing through his master’s thesis “The Effects of Rapport on the IQ: A Study in Racial Psychology”. This thesis provided suggestions for cultivating adequate test environments.

Throughout his career, he served many appointments, beginning with succeeding the position of Francis Sumner, the first black person to have a PhD degree in psychology, as chair of the psychology department at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute (now West Virginia State College). Another appointment included the Designated Diplomate of the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology. He played fundamental roles in the founding of the West Virginia Psychological Association, the West Virginia State Board of Psychological Examiners, and the Charleston (West Virginia) Guidance Clinic. Canady was also an avid member of the American Teachers Association, which was formed in response to the National Educations Association’s racist ban on black teachers. Additionally, he served as an expert witness for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in segregation and employment discrimination cases.

Some of Canady’s honors include the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Middle-Eastern Provincial Achievement Award, and Northwestern University’s Alumni Merit Award. One of his notable publications, Psychology in Negro Institutions, is the only known published research work that assessed the status, training, and research efforts of early psychologists in black colleges and universities. Throughout his career, his efforts prepared universities of all kinds and the workforce to train and accept black psychologists. He thus paved the way for the black psychologists of today.

https://www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/george-canady

02/14/2026

There is nothing sexier than safety.
If you are feeling unsafe in your home or relationship you are not alone!
Here are some places to get help:
Local: https://www.safeplaceolympia.org/
National: DV Hotline: 1.800.799.SAFE
or go to thehotline.org

02/12/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February. Today we spotlight Kenneth Clark, a Black psychologist, educator, and social activist. His research, particularly his "doll study,” was crucial to the desegregation of American public schools.

Clark was well-known as an undergraduate at Howard University; he led demonstrations against segregation in Washington, D.C. In 1940, Kenneth Clark became the first Black student to receive a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. Clark joined the faculty of City College in the early 1950s. He frequently served as an expert witness for the NAACP in its legal struggles against segregation.

His greatest fame, however, stemmed from his research on the self-image of Black children. Clark studied the responses of more than 200 Black children who were given a choice of white or brown dolls. From his findings that the children preferred the white dolls from as early as three years old, Clark concluded that segregation was psychologically damaging. This conclusion was pivotal in the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed segregated education.

He was at the forefront of articulating the intersectionality of societal racism and self-esteem from a psychological perspective. Although Clark fought for racial integration, his book “Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power” (1965) was popular among Black Nationalists because it compared the situation of Black citizens to that of colonized people. Clark authored many books and his televised interviews with James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were published in a book entitled “The Negro Protest” in 1963.

His ongoing work for civil rights earned him the NAACP's Spingarn Medal. Clark was also elected president of the American Psychological Association for his significant contributions to the field of psychology, receiving the association's Gold Medal Award.

https://aaregistry.org/story/kenneth-b-clark-pioneering-educator-and-psychologist/

02/06/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February.
Today's spotlight is on Janet E Helms, PhD.

Dr. Helms is an American research psychologist known for her study of ethnic minority issues. A scholar, author and educator, she is most known for her racial identity theory that is applied to multiple disciplines, including education and law. She received the 2006 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology from the American Psychological Association.

Helms work focuses on how race, culture and gender can influence one's personality and participating counseling styles. Her work is based in empirical evidence.

Dr. Helms seminal book A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life was a groundbreaking work on racial identity. But the situation was much different in the early 1990s when Helms first wrote the book. Publisher after publisher rejected it, unwilling to take a chance on a book that challenged the status quo and presented a paradigm shift in understanding race.

Helms decided to take matters into her own hands, turning to self-publishing. With the support of her sister, Jacalyn, she printed copies of A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have and began promoting it by visiting colleges, universities, and conferences across the country. Slowly but surely, the book gained traction through word of mouth and eventually found a publishing home.

Today, A Race Is a Nice Thing to Have is in its third edition and has won numerous accolades. It continues to be a seminal work in psychology, providing valuable insights into the complexities of racial identity. Helms’s journey from self-publishing the book to receiving widespread recognition is a testament to her unwavering dedication and belief in her work.

“There will always be hurdles,” she said. “But what you have to do is look for a way around them.”

02/04/2026

Featuring the contributions of Black excellence to the field of psychology and mental health throughout the month of February.
Today's spotlight is on William D. Parham, Ph.D., ABPP

Dr. Parham has devoted his professional career to teaching, training, clinical, administrative, and organizational consultation venues. He is a licensed psychologist, Board Certified in Counseling Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and Past-President of the Society of Counseling Psychology of the American Psychological Association where he also is recognized as a Fellow in Divisions 17 (Society of Counseling Psychology), 45 (Society for the Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race) and 47 (Exercise and Sport Psychology).

In addition, Dr. Parham serves currently as the inaugural Director of the Mental Health and Wellness Program of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). He is a member of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Mental Wellbeing and a member of the California Science Foundation Science of Sport Advisory Committee. He is a past member of the Mental Health and Wellness Task Force of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

For most of his professional career, Dr. Parham has focused on working with athletes across organizations, across levels, and across sports. He also has worked with performance artists in drama, theatre and music. Much of his current work focuses on trauma, an unfortunate personal experience of far too many athletes, artists and everyday citizens.

Dr. Parham’s emphasis on personal empowerment, discovering and cultivating innate talents and looking for hidden opportunities in every situation are trademark foci. He is widely known through his scholarship and conversations with domestic and international audiences for his work on the interplay between sport psychology, diversity, intersectionality, trauma, and health psychology.

https://newsroom.lmu.edu/expert-profile/parham-william-d/

01/28/2026

Please join me in welcoming Sarah Hayes, LMHCA to our staff here at Bridges and Boundaries. She has after school and evening appointments available and is in network with Regence, Premera, BCBS, Kaiser, and First Choice.

Sarah is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate who graduated from Pacific Lutheran University's Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy program. Whether you're feeling stuck, anxious, or depressed; or seeking personal growth, relationship support, or better communication, it is Sarah's goal to ensure everyone feels supported and free to be their authentic self in a safe and empathetic space.

Sarah's approach to therapy is client-centered, trauma-informed, and systemically oriented. She carefully considers how the intersectionality of clients' unique identities, lived experience, and the systems they are part of may impact their lives.

Sarah has an integrative style when working with clients and may utilize a variety of therapeutic modalities, including attachment theory, emotionally-focused therapy (EFT), family systems theory, narrative therapy, mindfulness, and play therapy. She has enjoyed supporting individuals, partners, and families with diverse backgrounds, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and neurodivergent identities.

Call or visit our website today to start services with Sarah or any of our other amazing therapists.

Counseling is a way to get support to bridge the gap between the unhealthy and the healthy.

01/12/2026

We are finishing up our 6th office and decorating it in a yellow sunny vibe to round out our rainbow of colors. We have one office left after that. What color theme do you think we should choose?