Karla Amanda Brown, LMFT

In 2016, I found myself dragging along towards the LMFT licensing exam. After steadying myself from the vicarous trauma of the murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, I cycled into phases of anger and grief on behalf of Black people around the world. Thankfully, I was able to use these emotions to fuel my professional journey – once I decided to focus my energies on working with Black families. To my dismay, in professional development contexts, I have found myself jumping through emotional and cognitive hoops in order to keep myself emotionally safe and to carry the learnings towards my clients. Many of these clients live with extraordinary amounts of external constraints, are neglected by the powerful in our society and most are of the Global Majority.  

As the CEO of the Silicon Valley based nonprofit, Soul Centric Counseling & Empowerment Center, I am in a position to promote the hiring and advancement of BIPOC mental health professionals. In a manner similar to AEDP’s promotion of “healing from the get-go,” I get to spend my days supporting pre-licensed clinicians with being effective and transformative from the get-go. I feel relieved knowing that I can confidently point my employees towards the AEDP Institute, which is generously making strides to educate Black clinicians, and those of other marginalized identities, while genuinely supporting our work with anyone who sits before us with the desire to transform and grow.”

Karla has been an Experiential Assistant in Immersion.