Allycin Powell Hicks: 0:02

I am not afraid to talk about the issues that are going on within our community, the things that are going on as a result of systematic you know, long term, endemic racism, and how it impacts us. I am 100% not scared. They can cut it out the damn show, But I'm going to say it. I'm going to say what I need to say because my focus is. I ignore the cameras, I pretend like they're not there and the person that I'm sitting across from mental care you know who they are or what they've been through I am connecting with that person.

Ijeoma Kola: 0:29

In this episode we welcome Dr Allison Powell Hicks, a clinical psychologist, tv personality and consultant who holds a PhD in clinical psychology from Loma Linda University. She's worked in various hospitals and clinics across Southern California, specializing in helping patients with severe presentations and diagnoses. Dr. Ally has also served as a psychologist and coach on shows like Love and Hip Hop and Family or Finance and was the host of the show like Mother, like Daughter, alongside her mom on Discovery Plus and Own. Dr. Ally shares her journey from traditional psychology practice to media psychology and now coaching, discusses the meditative and grounding practices she uses to take care of her own mental health as she treats her clients, and emphasizes the importance of having many mentors with varied experiences. Let's get into our conversation. Welcome to the Cohort Sistas Podcast. Dr. Ally, please tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, where you currently live, what do you do? would love to get to know you.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:36

Well, fabulous. Thank you so much for having me here because, like, it's so amazing to be able to be at this intersection of mental health and black women, and so I'm always happy to talk to any audience of black women, particularly us who are like let's go into this space that has been so wide for so long. So, absolutely a little about me. So I do. I have my PhD in clinical psychology with an emphasis in health, and I went to Loma Linda University So, and I got my master's there as well. I got into a dual program that's developed. Anyways, we can talk about that later, but I just want to get that out the way. So I am a California local There's not a lot of us Born and raised in Orange County, california, and then I went to college in Alabama. I actually went to an HBCU there called Oakwood University, which just about nobody's ever heard of.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 2:40

I think I was like I've never heard of that, Not gonna lie, it is a lesser known, it's a very small school and it is Seventh Adventist, so it's a religious HBCU. It's the only Seventh Adventist HBCU. So very specific and niche, that's what I'm going to say. I thought my husband there stories.

Ijeoma Kola: 3:03

I was going to say. I was like I feel like there are stories about that, but we can, we don't have to get into it.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 3:09

It would have to be an entire episode on deconstruction Christianity for me to have this conversation. But yeah, went there, my parents went there, my grandparents went there, so it is a big family school. Then I came back here for grad school And I trained in a lot of different hospitals. Because my emphasis in B was health, i wanted to do the like neuropsych testing, and it was a little bit of a downer for me because it's heavy. It's heavy work that you're doing with people that might not necessarily get better the way that you want them to, and I've always been a person who's drawn to more high acuity And so I tended to work with patients with more severe presentations and more severe diagnoses And so when you're working with severe patients who have major TBI and it gets kind of. It wasn't for me. So I pivoted into health and worked at a number of different hospitals around Southern California Loma Linda Hospital, obviously the inpatient hospital. they have their BMC. I went into a genetics clinic for a while where I was working with infants, doing neurodevelopmental screeners on kids with craniosynostosis. So they had cranial abnormalities And so we were doing assessments to get an idea of like where we were going to recommend them. Wonderful work. I loved working there.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 4:33

I worked at Kaiser Permanente for a while. I trained at Kaiser in a number of different clinics. One of the clinics I did there was their autism clinic And that was absolutely amazing And we did a testing and assessment there as well. And then I went on to Cedars. Well, i was at Cedars first for two years It's research there, did some work in DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy and future directed therapy, which is a lesser known intervention but it's very effective. And then I went on to do my postdoc with children, adolescents, in the reward of the court in the system, kids that were in this level, 14. It was like a psych hospital. I had an inpatient unit and then I had like an outpatient unit that was fully locked And these were very high acuity patients And I would say about 75% of them had sexual, been sex trafficked. But that was actually when I after that I quit psychology in the classic sense.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 5:34

So I don't know where you want to pick up, but this is where we are Okay.

Ijeoma Kola: 5:39

No, i mean I think that one of the most interesting as I talk to more and more psychologists we've had a couple on the podcast so far is like this tension between doing really important work but also needing to take care of your own mental health, especially when you're seeing like the worst of the worst. you know and so are seeing just like situations and encountering stories and people's traumas and just having to like protect yourself from all that. So we're going to just go in that direction. How do you, how do you, on a regular basis, kind of make space for your own wellness and well being? How did you do that when you were practicing in the traditional sense And how did that really shape the way that you have transformed your career away from traditional psychology practice into what you're currently doing now?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 6:27

Absolutely So back when I was doing traditional psychology, i actually have always been a little bit more esoteric, original, so I would use a lot of like meditation while I was working with clients. I would actively be meditating while I was practicing because, like you know, in Buddhism they talk about walking meditations and meditating doesn't necessarily have to be some like on top of a mountain. So I would do breath work with myself during sessions. So when things would get difficult and I would notice you know my own counter-transference, right, because we have our own experience while we're in the room If I noticed my anxiety rising I don't love silence, for example So when a client maybe didn't have something they wanted to say, or when they require, i would get super anxious and start over talking And so I would begin engaging in like my own breaths to allow myself to slow down, so I allow the phenomenological space of treatment to like exist and kind of rotate and move in its own way. And then after you know, when you know you're kind of left maybe with this residue, this stickiness from some clients, because not every client does that, where some clients you know it's in, out, whatever, but then you have a few and I've noticed. For me it tends to be clients with personality disorders, mostly cluster B personality disorders, that will kind of leave a little bit more of a residue. It's just because they need your support in different ways. So it's not a bad thing, it's just the thing to be aware of.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 7:57

I would use like the healing light sometimes to kind of like protect myself in sessions.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 8:02

So I would kind of like start session and I would like imagine myself surrounded by like either like a rainbow colored light or sometimes a white light, and it would obviously be permeable So I could still experience my you know what was going on with the client.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 8:16

So I wasn't like barred, like totally barricaded from them, but that I had something to kind of filter between me and them. And I'm telling you I'm esoteric, so not everybody has to do this And then after session, so when I would get to work, i would park as far as I could from the clinic So that after session I could do an actual walking meditation and with each step kind of like drop my day and like leave it behind and do my breath. It's kind of like I would do like a three step one, two, three would be my in breath. One, two, three my out breath and make it all the way up to the top floor parking garage in the back corner, you know, and and that was helpful for a really long time. Um, when I was working with the adolescents it was different, because I just love them so much.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 9:00

They were so great And it's like, Oh my God, all the horrible things happened to you And, um, that's when I kind of fell out of balance And so I took a pause And for me that was really helpful And I dove into things that were more creative and, for me, very joy centered, which was media, which was television, and so that's where I found myself for a while And I wasn't doing a lot of direct client work if it wasn't like in the space of media. And now, um, i have, i feel like I've taken enough of the rest And so now I'm getting like heavier into coaching and working with clients.

Ijeoma Kola: 9:38

And who knows?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 9:39

I may go back to classical psychology. We will see But right now.

Ijeoma Kola: 9:42

Awesome, All right, So let's get to know a little bit more about your doctoral journey. I would love to know did you know as a kid that you wanted to be a psychologist? Did you know anything about getting a doctor's degree? at what kind of critical point in your life Did you realize and decide Hey, this is something that I want to do. I want to get a PhD in clinical psychology.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 10:04

Absolutely. So I always wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a neurosurgeon from the time I was like two years old And I am from a medical family. So my, i am the eighth doctor in my immediate family. Wow, um, yeah, that's our. That's like the family business, that's what we do.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 10:21

My grandfather, my dad's father, was a psychologist and my um and he looked here in LA. So he was um and he actually was, i think, the second black man to get his MD from Loma Maria, because they wouldn't let black students be there by themselves. They had to have a roommate because they couldn't buy themselves and they couldn't have a white roommate, so they had to. So I think he was either like the second or like the third black man to get an MD from that university. So you know it's a thing. Then my um, my uncle's an internist, my other uncle was a general surgeon. My father passed away two years, three years ago, and he was a family practitioner and my cousin's a psychiatrist, my other cousins and internist, and then my mom is a psychologist PhD and then, uh, me and I thought I'd let somebody out. But that's us, and so it was kind of understood that you were getting some terminal like. You're getting a terminal degree, so choose you this day which degree you're going to get.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 11:20

So, um, i went to school as pre-med and I was a bio major with a psychology minor, um, because I liked the idea of bio biopsych. And in one of my psych classes, um, it was at the same time as I was in um, an anatomy lab and um in our school we were actually kind of fortunate enough to have a, an undergrad, a cadaver in our anatomy lab and a lot of universe a lot of undergrads don't get access to that And I was taking a class called um. What was it? the phenomena of health and illness. And it was about the intersection of how medical practice, um impact, like intersects with mental health. And we were like in a module talking about how, um, at a certain point, some, some doctors, can become distant from their patients because of, like, burnout of um when you're in, you know, when you're training and you're not sleeping a lot, and so you can begin to build this more distant relationship with your uh, with your patients. And I was like I don't want that.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 12:26

And then, during this anatomy lab, um, our cadaver was trans and she was a male to female trans person, trans woman And a lot of my classmates were really interested in her anatomy and, you know, surgical procedures And I was less interested by that. But I found myself really fixated on her nail polish because her nail polish was like it was chipped, like mine, is much like it is today. It was chipped And I was thinking what was going on in the last few days, weeks, months of this woman's life, that that led up to her passing, and I was just really trying to connect with her story. And that was my junior year and the beginning of my junior year. And that's when I realized, um, i think it's supposed to be a psychologist.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 13:19

I think I'm more into the story than purely the biology, than just wanting. You know, some of you just love to, you know, do surgeries and people just love to, you know, do physicals. I was like I don't know if that's my bag. So I switched my major to psychology with a minor in chemistry and I graduated with that. So I ended up having to actually go to another school because my school wouldn't let me take enough credits to catch up so I could graduate on time. So I actually attended Alabama A&M and open university and took 50 credits in a year, so I could get out.

Ijeoma Kola: 13:54

Wow, wow, okay, you were like it's going to happen.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 13:57

This is what I'm doing Four years. Four years Love it, Love it.

Ijeoma Kola: 14:03

So, um, when you finished your undergraduate degree, did you take time off before you started your doctoral program? How did you prepare for a doctoral program? I know that you've said that you you had family ties to Loma Linda, So I'm assuming that it was a you know another family school, but would love to kind of know how you thought about which schools to apply to, which programs would be best for you, And then kind of how much time you spent, um, like debating or navigating or even applying to doctoral programs 100%, so I don't think I put enough energy into application.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 14:34

Um, i was a little on the young side, and so when I graduated I was 20 or I had just turned 21. And I I wasn't fully, i will say, i don't think I was fully prepared for grad school, and so I only applied to two programs. Um, i was very like I got this in the bag, so I applied to Loma.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 14:54

Linda and I applied to Vanderbilt And I really really liked the program at Vanderbilt because at the time I was really focused on PEDS and adolescent work And they had a really wonderful P? um pediatric program that was connected to the Peabody Institute and or Peabody University, whatever Peabody and um. It was a fully funded program And that's what I wanted. But fully funded programs are super duper competitive And so I didn't get in and I was literally devastated, like this is the end of the world, this is the end of everything. But then I ended up getting into Loma Linda's program, which is not fully funded.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 15:28

So a girl has loans, um, so that's, you know, that's something to think about And I, if I could go back, i wish I would have taken time off because I graduated high school early. I graduated college and I was, you know, 21's, not young, but I feel like a lot of people are in college at 21, still kind of figuring themselves out, and I was done and in a graduate program by the end of the summer, you know, and most of my colleagues in grad school were in their 30s, you know, or they're late, i think late 20s was some of the youngest, like 28, 29, and I was, you know, 21. And so I kind of went straight in and it was a master's PhD program conjoined together, so you would not be awarded the master's if you didn't finish the PhD.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 16:18

So you had to go all the way through and you came out with both of them But you and you had to do a thesis in a dissertation And there was like an option where you didn't have to do the thesis but you wouldn't have the degree in the same way. It was something I don't remember. I'm gonna have to ask somebody, but I did a thesis in a dissertation and I do think that the way that I did it just kind of like pushing, pushing, pushing, doing 50 credit hours in my junior year and going straight into an eight year program. So I was in, i got my master's in PhD. It took me eight years to do those And it was a seven year program and I ended up taking an extra year to do an extra year of research at Cedars-Sinai And it was intense, it was a lot. It was, i mean, grad school is year round, there's no summer, at least my program there's no summer breaks Summer break What?

Ijeoma Kola: 17:14

is that.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 17:14

Yeah, you know and you know. So y'all listening like it's not impossible. It is enjoyable, there's wonderful moments, but it's like it's not for the faint of heart. My dad told me that grad school would be like drinking water from a fire hose. He said, basically, take in what you can, but you cannot expect yourself to take it all in and to get and to be perfect at all of it. Do not expect that You will literally explode. So take in what you can, what you are good at, be the best at, and what you're not really great at. You know, feel your best, but you know don't fail But like, don't kill yourself. So those stats classes, i barely made it. I barely made it.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 17:56

And also grad school grading is a little different, where in my program a B minus was an incomplete, you had failed the course. If you got a B minus And that's like not like a curve B minus, a B minus Like if you got below, like an, i think it's like an 85 or four in a class. You had to take it over and you got, i think, three chances to take any classes over over the eight year period and then you were asked to leave the program. So yeah, so it is like it's real And I think I officially burned out during our comprehensive exams. So comprehensive exams are at the end of your time in grad school you have to take. You know, every school is a little different.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 18:38

Our school at the time had a written exam and a like a multi-choice written exam and then a like a long treatise, you know, where you kind of like talked about your research, your experience in the program And it was this really long, you know book that you basically had to put together And I remember typing that, that stinking thing, and I just was in my bed and I just closed the computer and pulled my sheets over my head and was like I'm done, this is the end. Again, i'm a little bit catastrophizer. I was like I'm never gonna graduate failure, you know. And I finished and I graduated and I did great And here we are.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 19:24

So I would have taken time off so that I could have also really figured out what I wanted, because I kind of bounced around a lot with my or like my focus And I think some of the professors there were kind of like, is she mature enough to be serious? And I questioned myself, you know, was I mature enough? I made it through, but I think it's partly because I had a lot of doctors in my family who were kind of like guiding me and telling me like I could do it. I could do it, but I also engaged in a lot of things that made me happy. So I worked as a beauty editor all the way through grad school at a magazine And I became actually the creative director toward the end And so I mean I was also doing that and I was going to events and doing a lot.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 20:07

So I was double timing it but, my research was in beauty And I was studying body objectification and cosmetic surgery decisions in African-American women, so it aligned actually really well with my work as a beauty editor in African-American men.

Ijeoma Kola: 20:23

Yeah, that's our story there, So very, very similar and a strange, like a very specific way, except that I don't come from a family of doctors. But I too started at 21, started my PhD and was, as you mentioned, like everyone else was just wrong, like everyone else was a full on adult, and you know I was a child and didn't know what I was doing.

Ijeoma Kola: 20:45

I mean, i too worked as a blogger throughout my doctoral program and did things without in the streets, attending little blogging events. And you're right, like you know, you have to do whatever you have to do to like keep you sane and grounded, even as you're feeling like, well, ok, if I go to this event, and that means I'm like not working on my dissertation, and so like, maybe that means I like will take longer, but like, are you happy? So, like, go to the event if it makes you happy, because it's one thing to finish quickly, it's one thing to finish on time, but like, are you finishing in a way that you are emotionally whole and still sane? And I feel like that's where a lot of us are. We're getting the degrees that we come out not just burdened with financially, with all the debt that we often have to take on, but like we're just broken So we can't even use our research because we're so broken We don't want to look at it, we don't want to think about it. So that's something that I've been, i've been trying to encourage folks recently is like you have to take care of yourself while you're in your program, otherwise it won't matter, it'll just be letters after your name and it won't matter Other than that.

Ijeoma Kola: 21:48

So in your doctoral program you talked about being the youngest. You talked about not really spending enough time thinking through what would be the right program for you. Ultimately, do you feel like you had you were able to find good mentors at your program? Were they in your department? Were they outside of your department? You also kind of talked about mentorship from your family members. So just left for you to talk a little bit about where you found mentorship And if there were any black women specifically who you identified as mentors along your journey.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 22:21

Absolutely. I definitely have mentorship in a lot of diverse areas too. Like it's wild, but the actual head of the department, he is still alive. He's in his late 90s, like 98, 96 and like that. No, no, he's 92, 92.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 22:37

And I just saw him a few months ago in African-American man named Dr Lou Jenkins And he actually trained my mom in her postdoc at he drew a medical center. I love that, yeah, and he is just. I mean, he has been working in psychology for so long And I believe he was the first African-American head of this department And he was the chair when I was there And he has always been somebody who has guided me through with wisdom. I mean literally one of the most wise clinicians, integrated, and he one of his like like seminal classes that he taught was ethics, and so he was a highly ethical person And I really honor him and just have loved having him in my life for so long. And then and I would say he was my primary mentor from the university, i have other teachers that I still communicate with to this day that I would consider mentors as well, and two of them were non-black men and just amazing, two of some of the most amazing guys ever, and I think one of them is the head of the department.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 23:43

Now, i couldn't go to our last we had like a alumni day because I'm actually recovering from fibroid surgery that I had in March, and so it was like right after that and I couldn't go. But so then I've always been an active member of the American Psychological Association And I have some mentors over there as well And I've gotten some really good support and help. So I am in the, i'm in a number of divisions, but one of my primary divisions is the Media Psychology Division, considering that you know, i'm a renegade psychologist on TV And I mean not even a psychologist, because I'm like a. I'm definitely not, i'm a coach, you know, and so I like the term media psychology. But so over there I have, i would say, two really strong supportive mentors that I got, and I'll say I don't think I have a psychology black female mentor.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 24:47

There's not a lot of us, so I'm going to be honest about that. But I have Frank and he's a older white man, he's amazing. And Dr Romany and she's a woman and she's amazing. She's gotten me so many so she's connected me in so many different ways And she is a media expert in narcissism. She was on a table talk, she just up with Boag, like she is just absolutely spectacular.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 25:14

And then I have mentors in media, on the media side, so different producers and execs and people that I have aligned with, and I feel it is really important to either have mentors that pour into you and have tons of time to give to you And you're kind of like their primary mentor, or, if you don't find that, to have like the number of different mentors in a number of different areas, and for me that made more sense because I'm kind of in this hybrid space where there might not be one person who's doing exactly what I'm doing that has the time to just sit with me and pour into me completely, but to kind of have a number of different mentors in different industries that can guide me and give me advice and support, and like now I'm writing a book And so like having like a literary mentor. So there's a lot of different areas that I find myself getting support in.

Ijeoma Kola: 26:05

Yeah, that's such a great, great, great great piece of advice is to find mentors from a couple of different places, especially if you have interests that are not like very neatly boxed into your specific discipline. I also love your tip And I would have never thought of this as a way to find mentorship. But in our professional associations, you know, joining these little smaller niche groups, the subsections, the what are they called? in the Divisions I'm trying to divisions There's like another, there's a my I'm in the age, then I'm a historian, so an AHA, i feel like, is another thing that they call them. But anyway, there's several subgroups in here. We are like national professional organizations. That's the way for you to find people not just as scholars, like whose research you should be looking into, but as potential mentors. I've never thought about that, i've never heard anyone say that, so shout out to you for being the first person to share that on the podcast.

Ijeoma Kola: 27:00

It's a really good piece of advice, so we've been hinting at it a little bit. Would love to learn more about media psychology and your. How did you even end up thinking about and interested in psychology for the media in the media, with the media on TV, like how did that happen? I know that you talked about working as a beauty editor, so I'm assuming that kind of funneled you into this space. So I'd love for you to just talk about why you decided to either intentionally pursue or accidentally maybe I don't know how you ended up there, but let's know how you ended up as a kind of TV personality, media expert with this amazing research background that you can then use to help people's lives. Thank, you.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 27:45

Well, i love that. So it was kind of my dad's idea because I had a desire to be a doctor, but I really wanted to be a fashion designer and do like interior design, maybe like a full-born creative, and just flutter it through the world doing what I wanted. And they were like you got to get a doctorate, so figure it out. And so, as I was working with the basketball, i was like dad, like I don't know if I really want to do this Like this is really stressful. I'm a free spirit. This is like binding me to the earth. I hate this feeling. And he was like, well, what about just becoming a fashion psychologist? And I was like he was like put him together. He was like you can just make it up. So I was like, oh my God, like you're absolutely right.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 28:26

And so that's when I started studying beauty as a concrete construct, so more so like body objectification and the way that we relate to our own bodies. And then that it kind of extended into beauty and how we perceive it. And then that obviously extended into media, because how else do we get a notion of kind of what is beautiful? And there's this whole intersection between evolution and society, this kind of beautiful, complicated balance that we have, where we have on one side the evolutionary kind of beauty needs and then the society, that kind of shapes it more Anyways. So that kind of got me and then while I'm working at a magazine, i'm seeing marketing ads, i'm seeing how they're targeting particular groups, and so I was like, hmm, so there's something to the way that the human brain works and how we connect to ads, to brands, to products, to particular fashion, particular fashion houses. Why do these girls like OPI nail polish but these are like strict SC bitches, like what is the difference between the two groups?

Ijeoma Kola: 29:37

And- That's a good question that I've never thought about, but that's a good question.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 29:43

Right, i'm an SC girl. There's a distinct difference, like because I used to be OPI. It was too thin for me, anyway, too many layers I don't have enough patience. But so what are the differences? And so I got into kind of media that back way initially, and so I'm going to a lot of events, i'm going to a lot of parties and I'm obviously very different from people. I'm not a model, i'm not an actress, i am a professional who writes articles and is sitting in grad school all day. And so I start to see kind of like how there's crossover as I'm interacting with models, entertainers, professionals in that space, producers, and I made a friend and she was working on a pretty big television show at the time and she was a writer And she was telling me some of the things that were going on in the writer's room with a particular character that had experienced a gunshot wound in this show And it was like a. It was a big show, it's on ABC Family now And she was asking me, like what do you think would happen to this person? And so I ended up writing up an arc for the season on how the character along with her family system, how each person in the family system would respond a little differently to the trauma, based on the experience that they had had prior. And so then I got really into character development after that and started to help writers develop characters, develop plot arcs that make psychological sense as well, because a character is an individual And if I sit with individuals all stinkin' day I can kind of reverse, engineer a creative one right. So that was my first entree And that was for a show called The Foster's And that was my first entree into working in entertainment, like officially in television.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 31:32

And then I started doing appearances on a radio show called The Mo'Kelly Show on KFI AM640. Because basically I used to go on Twitter and just harass different show hosts who were saying things that I thought didn't make sense and weren't very nice, but I would use like literature and research to kind of reinforce my perspectives. And so the producers were like that's really interesting. And so I sat down with the producers. They're like let's go out to eat. And so we went out to eat And so I started doing Mo'Kelly Show, talking about the mental health and like narcissism and celebrity and stuff like that. Then I started doing a podcast for two years on relationships And then I got a contract with MTV to do a show with me, and I don't know if I can officially talk about it because the show never happened, but it was me and somebody from the Jersey Shore And it was really fun and it didn't become a thing, but it taught me a lot about how to be yourself on stage when you're in these like scripted, non-scripted spaces, and how do you make sure to balance research and science and ethics with something that's also gonna be interesting to watch.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 32:46

And then I got another show with OWN. After that I was on Family or a Fiance, which I'm still on on occasion. And then my mother and I got a show called Like Mother, like Daughter, where we were helping mothers and daughters to rekindle their relationships, and they were in the house for 21 days. And then I did Profile the Black Man over there, and who knows what other new stuff is coming out. There's actually a show on Hulu that I've done a little appearance on that's airing soon.

Ijeoma Kola: 33:15

So Okay, we'll have to keep our eyes peeled. So I think your work is so interesting And I think there are probably a lot of people who are maybe not probably are interested on using psychology and intersecting it with media.

Ijeoma Kola: 33:32

But even if they are not interested in that specific thing, they are interested in doing something beyond the traditional usages of the research talk and giving a pipeline. I would love to know, especially if you think about the black community when you're working with shows that have predominantly black cast, like how do you navigate the unique challenges that arise, like when addressing mental health and relationship issues within the black community. So like when you are loving hip hop, like how do you discuss mental health amongst, like really high profile, in a very public way, black celebrities? Yeah, just how do you navigate those? like the tensions between, especially with all of the narrative around you know, the black family, black relationships, black hyper sexuality. You know how do you kind of like juggle doing the work, like actually doing the work that you are trained to do with the public perception and interpretation of the vilification of these characters online not characters are real people in the media, yeah, but I'll talk.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 34:41

I talk about it. I am not afraid to talk about the issues with that are going on within our community, things that are going on as a result of systematic, you know, long term, endemic racism, and how it impacts us. I am 100% not scared. They can cut it out the damn show, but I'm going to say it. I'm going to say what I need to say because my focus is. I ignore the cameras, i pretend like they're not there and the person that I'm sitting across from mental care you know who they are or what they've been doing. I'm not sure what they are or what they've been through. I am connecting with that person and we are having our experience, but for me, what I find is I often don't want to go too deep. Right, i am a, i'm a coach, and sometimes the shows will want you to talk about certain things. And I talk about what I want to talk about because I am going to always be ethical and I'm always going to think about this person, this black person. How are they going to be impacted by this when they go home tonight? How are they going to feel tomorrow when they don't have access to me because I'm not their coach. I'm just was the coach for the show. So these are things that I think about. So, one, i'm always myself and two, i focus on the individual that I'm across from.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 35:46

I'm not necessarily respectors of persons, so I'm going to connect to you as a human person, no matter what it is that you do, whether you are someone who's done something, or you're a poor, or you're someone who's done something great. I am a believer in unconditional, positive human regard and I regard people and I find ways to empathize with people, even if they've done something that other people might not like, kind of like how you know. We believe that everyone deserves a defense. I believe everyone you know like at some point might deserve some type of mental health treatment, especially if they want it.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 36:17

Another part is having to also assert yourself with producers and producer staff, because everyone is different and most people who are producers on these teams are not psychologists, right, i don't know every producer that's ever produced, but most of them are producers. They have expertise in film, they understand what they're doing and they are amazing, qualified and talented. And making sure that you stand on your standards and on your ethics is is really, and making sure that, if they asked you to do something that you tell them like nope, i'm not going to do that or that's not necessarily ethical, and if they push you say no, not doing it. So you can put you can, you can say whatever you want to say, but I know what I'm going to say because I don't remember who gave me this advice.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 37:01

It might have been one of my really close friends, her name is monies and she was on love and hip hop And I think that she said this, but basically was if you don't say it, you only say what you are, what you are okay saying. So if they put it out, they put it out. You know you force them to have to do too much weird work to make you sound like you said something you didn't say, and that's never happened to me. I always say exactly what it is I intend to say and it comes off, i mean 99.99% of the time, exactly how I wanted it to. And some of the things that are important for me, especially when dealing with black folks, is just giving them the support and the help that they need, because when you're doing work like this on TV, you're not just working with the person but you are working metaphorically with the viewer that is dealing with the same issue, and so I'm not concerned about you know, necessarily like what story does the production team wanted to?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 37:59

I mean, i'll do it but I'm not as less on my focus. My focus is helping this person and, by extension, helping all these folks.

Ijeoma Kola: 38:07

Right, right, yeah, that's such an interesting perspective. you know this idea that you're not just working with the individual, you're also like working with the perspective viewer, that's so, that's like very meta. So, yeah, high level, what is your philosophy that drives your career and create the cloud, have you? you know, especially at the very beginning you talked about you started off in clinical practice, then you move to psychology, media psychology, and now you're doing some coaching. maybe you'll go back, you never know, like what's the philosophy that kind of drives how you think about your career and the evolution of it.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 38:49

You know, i am a very in the moment person. I'm very mindful, i try to be as present as I can possibly be, and so I listen to myself, i listen to my guides and I listen to my mentors, and so I I pivot fast. That's one thing that I've always been able to do. I don't hold on to things for very long, and so I don't hold on to this idea that like, oh, i have to be this thing, oh, i have to be like this, i have to be like that. No, i'm going to be exactly how I want to be right now, whatever that looks like. If people don't like it, move on, watch something else, deal with somebody else. I don't care, and as long as I'm comfortable with what it is, i'm doing Right, and so that's. That's a part of my ethos, which is just being very fundamentally aware of yourself, and when I work with most of my clients, i do the same thing.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 39:38

Like the first move I make is awareness. How do we increase your awareness to a degree where we can actually work together? because if you don't know what's going on, it's going to be hard Right, and and purpose is also very connected to that for me. So I've solidified what it is my purposes And then, like, my top three motivators are beauty, knowledge and creativity. So I know if I'm presented with a project that is not in alignment with all three of those things, i'm not really going to be super motivated to continue doing it. And so if whatever I'm doing is it moving in those three spaces, like it's not for me But that allows me to have so many things that are so fundamentally and uniquely mine Yeah yeah, love that clarity.

Ijeoma Kola: 40:24

So as we wrap up, we look to ask each guest two questions. So one is what is one thing, what is one thing that you would do differently, if any, during your doctoral journey, if you have to do it all over again?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 40:39

I would have found a fully funded program and probably waited until I got one, so I didn't have a ton of loans.

Ijeoma Kola: 40:45

Even when I love Loma Linda.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 40:47

Loma Linda is an excellent, excellent program. They made me into a genius Like it's an excellent program. But yeah, I probably would have found them a grant or something.

Ijeoma Kola: 40:56

Yeah, All right. And then last question maybe this is related, but what is one piece of advice that you have for prospective or current black women and non-binary doctoral students?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 41:09

I would say take your time and love yourself. Like grad, school can be a space where you're used to being the smartest kid in the class and you're not going to be the smartest kid in the class anymore.

Ijeoma Kola: 41:22

Not all of them. You may have your class.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 41:26

So allow space for you to maybe not feel great every day and not feel like anything's wrong with you because you don't feel great. Life is about ebb and flow. You know, pulling y'all It's not going to be consistently great or consistently bad. So give yourself the space to like, accept, kind of like the the transitions and changes that are going to happen within the space.

Ijeoma Kola: 41:55

Thank you for that wonderful piece of advice, dr Ali, and thanks for joining us on the cohort sisters podcast. Cohort Sisters is an online global network empowering black women pursuing doctoral degrees by providing resources, mentorship and community. For more information, please visit our website at cohort sisterscom. Thank you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you you, you, you, you, you.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:28:34

But for me, what I find is I often don't want to go too deep. Right, i am a coach and sometimes the shows will want you to talk about certain things. And I talk about what I want to talk about Because I am going to always be ethical and I'm always going to think about this person, especially this black person. How are they going to be impacted by this when they go home tonight? How are they going to feel tomorrow when they don't have access to me because I'm not their coach, i'm just was the coach for the show. So these are things that I think about. So, one, i'm always myself and two, i focus on the individual that I'm across from. I'm not necessarily a respecter of person, so I'm going to connect to you as a human person, no matter what it is that you do, whether you are someone who's done something horrible or someone who's done something great.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:29:18

I am a believer in unconditional, positive human regard and I regard people and I find ways to empathize with people, even if they've done something that other people might not like.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:29:30

Kind of like how we believe that everyone deserves a defense. I believe everyone you know like at some point might deserve some type of mental health treatment, especially if they want to. So, and another part is having to also assert yourself with producers and producer staff, because everyone is different and most people who are producers on these teams are not psychologists, right, i don't know every producer that's ever produced, but most of them are producers, they have expertise in film, they understand what they're doing and they are amazing, qualified and talented. And making sure that you stand on your standards and on your ethics is really important. And making sure that if they ask you to do something that you tell them like, nope, i'm not going to do that, or that's not necessarily ethical. And if they push, you say Nope, not doing it. So you can put, you can, you can say whatever you want to say, but I know what I'm going to say, because I don't remember who gave me this advice.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:30:24

It might have been one of my really close friends Her name is Moniz and she was on love and hip hop And I think that she said this, but basically was if you don't say it, it's not. The camera can't record it, so you only say what you are, what you are okay saying. So if they put it out, they put it out. You know you force them to have to do too much weird work to make you sound like you said something you didn't say, and that's never happened to me.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:30:51

I always say exactly what it is I intend to say and it comes off, i mean, 99.99% of the time, exactly how I wanted it to, and so those are some of the things that are important for me, especially when dealing with black folks, is just giving them the support and the help that they need, because when you're doing work like this on TV, you're not just working with the person, but you are working metaphorically with the viewer that is dealing with the same issue, and so I'm not concerned about you know, necessarily like what story does the production team want to tell? I mean, i'll do it, but I'm not, as that's not my focus. my focus is helping this person and, by extension, helping all these folks.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:31:30

Right, right, yeah, that's such an interesting perspective. You know this idea that you're not just working with the individual, you're also like working with the perspective viewer, that's so, that's like very meta. So, yeah, high level. So what is your philosophy that drives your career and creativity? How have you, you know, especially at the very beginning you talked about, you started off in clinical practice.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:31:57

Then you move to psychology media psychology and now you're doing some coaching. Maybe you'll go back, you never know like what's the philosophy that kind of drives how you think about your career and the evolution of it.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:32:11

You know, i am a very in the moment person. I'm very mindful, i try to be as present as I can possibly be, and so I listen to myself, i listen to my guides and I listen to my mentors, and so I I pivot fast. That's one thing that I've always been able to do. I don't hold on to things for very long, and so I don't hold on to this idea that like, oh, i have to be this thing, oh, i have to be like this, i have to be like that. No, i'm going to be exactly how I want to be right now, whatever that looks like.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:32:42

If people don't like it, move on, watch something else, deal with somebody else. I don't care, and as long as I'm comfortable with what it is, i'm doing Right, and so that's. That's a part of my ethos, which is just being very fundamentally aware of yourself, and when I work with most of my clients, i do the same thing. Like the first move I make is awareness. How do we increase your awareness to a degree where we can actually work together? because if you don't know what's going on, it's going to be hard Right, and and purpose is also very connected to that for me. So I've solidified what it is my purposes, and so my top three motivators are beauty, knowledge and creativity. So I know if I'm presented with a project that is not in alignment with all three of those things, i'm not really going to be super motivated to continue doing it, and so if whatever I'm doing is it moving in those three spaces, it's not for me, but that allows me to have so many things that are so fundamentally and uniquely mine.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:33:44

Yeah, yeah, love that clarity. So as we wrap up, we look to ask each guest two questions. So one is what is one thing, what is one thing that you would do differently, if any, during your doctoral journey, if you have to do it all over again?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:34:02

I have a fully funded program and probably waited until I got one so I didn't have a ton of loans. Excellent, excellent program. I they made me into a genius, like it's excellent program. But yeah, I probably would have found them a grant or something.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:34:20

Alright, and then last question maybe this is related, but what is one piece of advice that you have for perspective or current black women and non binary doctoral students?

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:34:32

I would say take your time and love yourself. Like grad school can be a space where you're used to being the smartest kid in the class and you're not going to be the smartest kid in the class anymore.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:34:46

You may have your class.

Allycin Powell Hicks: 1:34:48

So allow space for you to maybe not feel great every day and not feel like anything's wrong with you because you don't feel great. Life is about ebb and flow. you know, pulling y'all It's not going to be consistently great or consistently bad. So give yourself the space to accept, kind of like the the transitions and changes that are going to happen within the space.

Ijeoma Kola: 1:35:17

Thank you for that wonderful piece of advice, dr Ali, and thanks for joining us on the cohort justice podcast.