Recovering the Capacity to Become: Ontological Reclamation Through Hip Hop

In psychotherapy, we frequently consider the complexities of change and healing occurring in the lives of those we work with. Less frequently considered, however, is the more fundamental and prerequisite process of reclaiming one’s capacity to become. Experiences of oppression, trauma, loss, and dehumanization often do more than produce psychological distress; they can diminish one’s sense of agency and participation in life. This workshop introduces a model of Ontological Reclamation, a conceptual foreground that can better allow clinicians to recognize and respond to this process in clinical practice.

The Ontological Reclamation framework draws from existential humanistic concerns of freedom, meaning, identity, ambiguity, and self-authorship, as well as scholarship addressing Black Existentialism and meaning-making within oppressive contexts. Building upon this work and presenter-developed scholarship, participants will examine how experiences of onologial reducation may appear clinically through resticited self-concept, internalized self-value as one strives toward authenticity and self-definition.

Participants will examine music as a medium through which ontological reclamation occurs. Early findings from a phenomenological study of hip hop and its lyrics will contextualize how hip hop and lyric writing can foster the creation of counternarratives, challenge externally imposed identities, and support reclamation of agency and capacity to self-define. These findings will be placed in dialogue with examples from the classical music tradition to reflect a greater human capacity for meaning-making and becoming.

As part of this workshop, attendees will encounter select musical works from both hip hop and classical traditions and, as a group, apply the Ontological Reclamation model through dialogue. Participants will gain a unique existential framework for counseling and practical strategies for recognizing this process in cross-cultural counseling.

Continuing Education Information

RMHCPA partners with Division 32 (Society for Humanistic Psychology to offer CE programs. APA Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. APA Division 32, Society for Humanistic Psychology, maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

Disability Accommodations

For disability accommodations and more information on the CE offering, contact us at [email protected].