2023 Day 1 Keynote Speaker
Dr. Autum Asher BlackDeer
TOPIC: Decolonizing Therapy: Centering Liberation for Collective Healing
Dr. Autumn Asher BlackDeer is a queer decolonial scholar-activist from the Southern Cheyenne Nation and serves as an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver. Her scholarship illuminates the impact of structural violence on American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Dr. BlackDeer centers Indigenous voices throughout her research by using quantitative approaches and big data as tools for responsible storytelling. Dr. BlackDeer is a racial equity scholar with an emphasis on Indigenous tribal sovereignty and is deeply committed to furthering decolonial and abolitionist work.
2023 Day 2 Keynote Speaker
Dr. Jeshana Avent-Johnson, Psy.D
TOPIC: Mental Health- What's intimacy got to do with it?
Dr. Jeshana Avent-Johnson is the Founder of The Intimacy Seminars™ and Psychological Services. She is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in the state of California (PSY30170), a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional, and Trauma Informed Registered Yoga Instructor (RYT). Dr. Avent-Johnson specializes in Couples, Sex, Relationship, and Trauma Therapy. She uses a culturally meaningful systems-based therapy that utilizes traditional talk therapy to identify your LOVE BLUEPRINT as well as trauma-conscious yoga and other somatic approaches to help individuals & couples process and metabolize their unhealed wounds and birth their sensual self.
Dr. Avent-Johnson. focuses on helping you reach your relational potential by increasing your capacity for intimacy and passion. Her clinical experience has been significant in helping individuals and couples develop and evolve by providing a window into yourself, your partner, and your relationship. Dr. Avent-Johnson is bold and whitty, supportive, yet challenges individuals and couples to hold onto self and operate from the BEST in you (personal integrity) while maintaining relationships with others. Dr. Johnson’s Intimacy Seminars have been sought out by many churches, organizations and homes across the United States, West Africa and the UK. Her ability to orbit people into action has been life changing for many.
