Kevin Washington (Mwata Kairi), Ph.D • Psycho-Spiritual Advisor – Father Kevin Washington, a priest in the African-American Catholic Congregation’s Imani Temple National Cathedral, is a licensed psychologist as well as an academician, an ordained minister, a dynamic speaker, author, life/relationship coach and percussionist who has served as a behavioral consultant for Essence Magazine Entertainment Television (BET) News, and many other national and international international organizations. His life is devoted to assisting people to step into their divine right to be and to become more powerful. Not only does he work in healing the psycho-spiritual wounds that are present within Black male-female relationships, he continues to develop healing paradigms for Afrikan Spiritual illumination beyond Persistent Enslavement Systemic Trauma (PEST). His method involves elevating spirit through providing transformational experiences found in spiritual alignment rituals/ activities in therapy, workshops, retreats and lectures. He also researches and writes about PEST, Cultural Trauma and the healing components of Ubuntu Psychology.
Currently a Professor in the Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC, Dr. Washington received a bache- lor’s degree in Psychology from Grambling State University and a master’s degree in Educational Psychology as well as a doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology from Texas A & M University. He has served as Clinical Coordinator, and Consulting Psychologist for several mental health agencies and a foster care agency such as the Center for Life Enrichment and Helping Children Grow, Inc.
Additionally, he has taught at several universities and colleges including Grambling State University, Morgan State University, University of the District of Columbia, University of Nebraska, Trinity College, San Francisco State University and Rollins College. Currently, he is a Psychology Professor at Valencia College and a practicing psychologist for The Center for Optimal Life, his mental health practice, in Florida.
As a Fulbright-Hays scholar Dr. Washington researched the impact of socializing institutions on the healing or restructuring of post-apartheid South Afrika. Additionally, he researched traditional healing systems in South Afrika and Ghana, West Afrika. This work has been expanded to include research in Barbados and other Caribbean Islands. He is developing therapy (healing) paradigms for working with ethnically and culturally diverse populations with an emphasis on Afrikan American families, relationships, and men. The major thrust of the paradigms is to ensure that methods of healing are consistent with the essence and desires of diverse populations. His Afrikan-Centered therapeutic model has been implemented in the Prosocial Family Therapy Project that provided in-home family therapy in Washington, DC. He has published a book entitled The Resurrection of Black: Empowering Black Relationships to Succeed, and is set to release Get Up, Stand Up: A Message for Elevating the Warrior Spirit in Black Males and To Heal a People: Illuminating the Divine Afrikan Spirit in the near future.