Mental health, social disorder, and Transformative Mentoring of Youth

• In Event: The Critical Theory and Practice of the Credible Messenger Movement: Why Solidarity, Love and Consciousness Matter.

Abstract

Traditional rehabilitation approaches toward youth assume that youth are guilty of “thinking errors” and use cognitive behavior therapy to correct these errors. The problem with this approach is these “errors“ are often a response to environmental conditions that result in pain, fear, loss, anger, and unmet needs. Credible messenger mentoring offers the youth a chance to express thoughts and feelings without them being pathologized. All the youth in our research experienced factors that resulted in developmental trauma. Healing that trauma involves forming healthy relationships with their family and their community. Generative justice, as opposed to restorative justice does not assume that there was a healthy fair world that needs to be restored; it argues that transforming social relationships is key to individual health and social health. Love is a force that can heal wounds, rebuild relationships, and generate new modes of relating and living. Transformation is an individual and collective process.

Author

• Danny Kessler, John Jay College of Criminal Justice