When Hair Care Is Self-Care
With her PsychoHairapy practice, Afiya Mbilishaka is tapping into a mental health space often overlooked: Black hair salons
It’s tradition for the squeals of gleeful gossip to mix with the sizzle of strands being straightened or the buzzing of barbers’ clippers in salons across the world. Think back to the tea you overheard while under the dryer or the secrets you may have spilled in the hours it took to braid your hair.
Now imagine if instead of snap judgment and unsolicited advice — “Girl, what you need to do is…”— the stylist listened and offered resources appropriate to what you were going through. What if she were trained to administer emotional first-aid?
Afiya Mbilishaka, PhD, head of psychology at the University of the District of Columbia and known as Dr. Afiya, is developing a curriculum to this end. Her emerging practice, PsychoHairapy, explores theories related to the psychology of hair and uses hair as an entry point into mental health services. Dr. Afiya founded the PsychoHairapy Research Lab on the campus of Howard University in 2014 and began building a trove of quantitative and qualitative data. For her findings, Dr. Afiya, who is also a natural hairstylist, was named Scholar of the Year by the Association of Black Psychologists this July.
