Della V. Mosley
Wellness & Liberation
Black Feminist
In all of my work I am trying to get myself and my communities, our global community, toward more wellness and liberation. I focus on social justice, prevention, holistic wellness, and strengths in my work. My primary approach to healing, scholarship, activism, mentoring, and all other aspects of my work is Black feminism. Black feminism is an approach to viewing and acting on the world that seriously considers the standpoint of Black women, encourages their self-definition and empowerment, and grapples with the many systems that have an influence our ability to access holistic wellness. While Black feminism was developed by and is centered on Black women, there are many characteristics that have come to represent Black feminism today. When I emphasize that I am a Black feminist healer I am underscoring that I: desire an end to all forms of oppression, recognize the value of relationships and community, strive to analyze how power is operating at all times through an intersectional lens, know that embodied knowledge and lived experience are valuable knowledge sources, prioritize both personal and collective healing, and work toward social change.
In my twitter bio, since I have had a twitter bio, it has said “I reach and fall and teach and learn and grow.” Black feminism gave me permission to be both a student and a teacher. An expert and a novice. Black and queer. A person reclaiming her Black girlhood as a grown femme. A leader, counseling psychologist, researcher, educator and also a participant in a healing circles who can cry and connect and not know the answers or the way and sit at the feet of my mentors.
Scholar
My formal and informal education has come from Bradley University (bachelor’s in English), Johns Hopkins University (master’s in School Counseling), the University of Kentucky (doctorate in counseling psychology), Duke University (doctoral internship in professional psychology), and the countless community organizers and activists, Black feminists, young people, and community members I have crossed paths with during my fight for liberation and wellness.
I intentionally use my education and training in counseling, skills and experience conducting culturally mindful and award-winning research, history counseling Black youth and queer and transgender People of Color, experience organizing and doing movement work under a Black queer feminist framework, lessons learned in community with my squad of incredible mentors and mentees, history as an educator, and life as a Black queer woman to promote wellness and survival for folx who are systematically excluded from it.
Creator
During my time as a tenure-track faculty member in the psychology department at the University of Florida (2018-2021), I developed and led the Wellness, Equity, Love, Liberation, and Sexuality Healing and Research Collective. My research, teaching, and service then and now connect to my larger goal of enhancing the wellness of folx who experience oppression simply as a result of their social identities.
I co-founded Academics for Black Survival and Wellness (#Academics4BlackLives) with Pearis Bellamy in 2020. I am the President of the non-profit The WELLS Healing Center, co-founder of the Radical Healing Collaborative Group Practice, a proud member of the Psychology of Radical Healing Collective, and an American Psychological Association (APA) Minority Fellow. I also recently gave a TEDx talk entitled “Moving from Woke to Working for Black Futures.
As one with significant unearned privilege as an American-born cis woman, well-educated, 60-something, white-identified person - I thank Dr. Mosley for her leadership, and I commit to continue the deep work necessary if I am to be a true ally (or better yet an accomplice) for justice and healing.
DR. MARY BOLIN
Director of University of Kentucky Counseling Center
“I reach and fall
and teach and learn and grow.”
Past Projects
Academics for Black Survival and Wellness (A4BL)
Co-founded by Dr. Della V. Mosley and Pearis Bellamy, A4BL is a personal and professional development initiative for Non-Black academics to honor the toll of racial trauma on Black people, resist anti-Blackness and white supremacy, and facilitate accountability and collective action. A4BL also is a space for healing and wellness for Black people.
Psychology of Radical Healing
The Psychology of Radical Healing is a scholar-activist collective, a set of theoretical frameworks (radical healing and radical hope), an open access syllabus, and a popular blog on Psychology Today. Our work is about promoting healing through social justice. We focus on uncovering, evaluating, and amplifying culturally relevant approaches to advancing holistic wellness and healing racial trauma.
NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology’s Wellness, Equity, & Liberation Consultant
The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology (CSN) is a multi-institutional partnership aimed at developing a molecular-level understanding of the fundamental chemical and physical processes that govern the transformations and interactions of nanoparticles in the environment. As the Wellness, Equity, and Liberation Consultant for this center, I co-construct, facilitate, and evaluate the wellness, equity, and liberation related initiatives offered through the center.
Critical consciousness of anti-Black racism: A practical model to prevent and resist racial trauma
This study presents a practical model of critical consciousness development that delineates the core processes Black people navigate to actively prevent and resist racial trauma in an intersectional and systematic manner. The findings suggest that when Black people are exposed to anti-Black racism, they can not only cope but also reduce racial trauma in their broader worlds by going through specific cognitive, intersectional, and behavioral growth processes. This widely cited study has informed curriculum, grassroots campaigns, group counseling interventions, doctoral training in counseling psychology, and is the basis of a TEDx Talk “Moving from ‘woke’ to working for Black futures.”
Worthy of Wellness© Program Creator and Trainer
Worthy of Wellness is a program focused on increasing participants’ understanding of their worthiness of wellness, increasing their access to holistic and culturally-relevant wellness, and improving the material conditions of marginalized folx through psychoeducation, counseling, support, coaching, education, and the provision of quality resources and referrals. The Worthy of Wellness (c) Program has been used by large corporations (e.g., tech, finance), small colleges, university departments of all sizes, and beyond.
Collaborators
I would like to honor the people who regularly collaborate with me on initiatives. Thank you for your wisdom, friendship, and for sharing your gifts in the many ways that you have and do for our collective liberation.
