Gothic Black Feminist Interventions: The Dilapidated American Mansion and Other Peculiar Rites
Monyae A. KerneyBlack womxn's endurance of the American Gothic is distinct—one filled with corporeal violence, blood-thirsty systems, and haunting histories—thus, their healing requires the development of an equally attuned Gothic approach. Gothic Black feminism is an emerging theory that considers Black American womxn's madness to be the intended consequence of presumably permanent systems of power—henceforth referred to as the American Gothic. This piece, the third within a three-part Gothic Black feminist series, carries the thread of its conceptual and clinical innovation. The present work presents five novel interventions organized between two overarching sections: (1) Gothic Psychotherapy: Roots of an emerging praxis and (2) Gothic Black feminist intervention: Applying its lens to existing approaches. Section one, Gothic Psychotherapy, introduces two interventions foundational to the emerging praxis: (1) Co-witnessing and (2) Gothic Black feminist psychoeducation. Section two, Gothic Black feminist intervention, introduces three novel interventions that demonstrate the application of its lens to existing clinical approaches: (1) Gothic card sorting/clinical cartomancy/Gothic Black feminist tarot, (2) Macabre metaphors and Gothic storytelling, and (3) Gothic narrative work. Two composite case vignettes, demonstrating the applied use of these interventions in the treatment of Black womxn clients, are included.