Dr. Tanisha Thelemaque helps organizations and individuals develop their understanding of equity while fostering systemic inclusion. She has developed and overseen quality improvement projects, led teams of people from different professional and cultural backgrounds, and developed programs that last long after she has left an institution. She has also presented her work at international conferences and within numerous professional organizations.
She is a content developer with an intersectional eye who continues to work with international corporations, start-ups, non-profits, and educational institutions in furthering their diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.
Clinical Workshops and Presentations
Racial Trauma Series
Understanding and Responding to Racial-Based Stress
Length: 60 minutes
Description: The vision for the workshop series is to create a space for open dialogue and increased awareness about culturally responsive clinical care. The first installment is an one-hour long workshop crafted to provide a foundational understanding of what race-based traumatic stress is and how it impacts mental health. Specifically, definitions of key concepts are explored and a model of discussing race will be reviewed as an introduction to exploring individuals’ experiences of racialized violence. This is an interactive experience meant to elicit conversation as well as explore strategies for supporting marginalized individuals.
Embodying Culturally Responsive Care (Part 1)
Length: 30 to 45 minutes
Description: This session focuses on utilizing emotion regulation-based skills to promote healing in people coping with race-based stressors. Oftentimes, individuals are enveloped by negative emotions and potential despair when interfacing with race-based trauma. Strategies focused on collective and individual empowerment are presented as methods of allowing people to move through their emotions and engage in healing.
Embodying Culturally Responsive Care (Part 2)
Length: 30 to 45 minutes
Description: This session focuses on utilizing values-based action in combination with the emotion regulation skills discussed in the previous session to promote healing in clients coping with race-based stressors. With empowerment, there is often a motivation to impact the world. However, engaging in social justice oriented behaviors can provide additional exposure to race-based traumas and triggers. Throughout this session, we will discuss how to facilitate a space of values-based exploration so that you can empower your clients to engage in meaningful ways that promote their mental health.
LGBTQIA+ Issues in Therapy
Navigating the Unique Experiences of LGBTQ+ Clients of Color
Length: 60 minutes
Description: The vision of this workshop series is to create a space for open dialogue and increased awareness about culturally responsive clinical care for the LGBTQ+ population. To this end, there will be a combination of instruction, thoughtful questioning, and illustrative case presentations that will ground participants in the best practices for working with individuals with intersecting identities. The first workshop will focus on unique challenges that may arise when working with LGBTQ+ clients of color through an intersectional and decolonial lens. Key concepts related to sexual orientation and racial identity development will be explored. By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to describe and define racism as well as heterosexism. Participants will also be able to identify at least one strategy to explore racial or gender identity among clients.
Engaging in Intersectional Gender Affirming Care
Length: 60 minutes
Description: The second 60-minute workshop in this series focuses on affirming gender identity and assisting clients in navigating gender-related transitions, which include but are not limited to social transitions and medical transitions such as gender affirming surgeries and hormonal treatments. This presentation will provide clinicians with tools that will not only allow them to think about their own gendered experiences but also gain the building blocks for guiding a client through an exploration of their gender. Guiding clinical questions and case examples focused on transgender and gender non-conforming clients of color will be utilized. This is an interactive experience meant to elicit conversation as well as explore strategies for supporting clients. No prior knowledge of providing care to transgender or gender non-conforming individuals is necessary to take this course.
Being an Anti-oppressive Therapist: Effective Practices for Working with LGBTQIA+ People of Color
Length: 90 minutes
Description: The ability to effectively implement intersectionality, anti-racism, and healing practices in therapeutic and academic settings is an integral part of forming an inclusive environment. This 90-minute training creates a space for increased awareness around culturally responsive clinical care with people of color who exist along the spectrum of sexual and/or gender. To this end, there will be a combination of instruction, thoughtful questioning, and illustrative case presentations that will ground participants in the best practices for working with individuals with intersecting identities. Participants will also be provided with tools to continue the exploration of their own gendered and racialized experiences.
Additional Offerings
Fostering Inclusion
Length: 60 to 90 minutes
Description: An adaptive presentation that highlights key components of Equity and Inclusion while guiding participants through activities that highlight how to cultivate inclusion.
The Heart of Healing
Length: 60 to 90 minutes
Description: This is an abbreviated guide to coping with historical and cumulative trauma. Tools grounded in empirical and indigenous healing practices are explored as a way of understanding and moving through trauma.
What People are Saying About Dr. T
Colleague
“In everything she does, Dr. Tanisha Thelemaque epitomizes an extraordinary mix of intelligence, creativity, and integrity, leavened by warmth and wit… As a clinician, educator, and consultant, Tanisha brings a clear-eyed and engaging energy and focus that invites her clients, learners, and colleagues to lean forward and to joyfully join in the work at hand. I leave interactions with Tanisha feeling a greater sense of clarity and purpose, and more enlivened for the steps that lie ahead. I refer others to her with complete confidence that she will go above and beyond, and that she will inspire whomever she works with to do the same.“
Former Client
“Dr. Thelemaque is incredibly supportive, encouraging, and gives invaluable guidance and feedback. I have relied on her a lot for career advice and she knows exactly what to say to help motivate me to take action. We created a plan to increase my exposure to potential employers and she has worked with me extensively to build my confidence and learn how to market myself better. I cannot recommend her coaching enough!!!”
Former Client
“Dr. Thelemaque is incredibly knowledgeable about the professional landscape I’m trying to enter, and has wonderful suggestions about how to both brand myself uniquely, and help me think about seeking out the kinds of opportunities and connections that will be most useful and meaningful in the next steps of my career. Most importantly to me, as I navigate this overwhelming process, has been her ability to meet me where I am, and structure the tasks I need to complete in a way that is approachable and realistic, while still feeling productive. She has helped me immensely to gain confidence in myself and to get things done that I’ve avoided for far too long! I really appreciated the way she gently drew out my fears and hopes, and helped me develop a plan to move forward that felt values-based.”
Interested in having Dr. Thelemaque speak with you or at your organization?
Dr. Thelemaque works collaboratively with clients to ensure that she understands the goals of the presentation, size of the group, and participants’ familiarity with the topic so that she can best engage the audience.
Email directly at DrTThelemaque@gmail.com