Meet Dr. Josiane
Dr. Josiane Bonté Apollon, or “Dr. Josiane,” is a Couple and Family researcher, licensed psychotherapist, Integrative life coach, and International speaker. She provides a systemic and integrative approach, with over 20 years of professional experience in guiding, counseling, coaching, and teaching multicultural couples, families, students, professionals, and organizations in the art and science of compassionate loving.
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Discovering Joyful Togetherness
Dr. Josiane started her clinical training with play therapy and continues to highly value the role of playfulness in couple intimacy. Dr. Josiane believes that child play is similar to a spiritual experience, boundless, nonlocal, generative creativity. Dr. Joss uses humor to free clients from undesired patterns and dissolve the emotional knots that hold people back away from who they want to be. Dr. Joss earned her MS in Mental health Counseling from the University of Miami and her PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Josiane has been formally trained in Imago Therapy by Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt, in clinical hypnosis by Douglas Flemons, in Integrative Life coaching by the Debbie Ford Institute, and Strategic Intervention Coaching and Mentorship from Tony Robbins and Cloe Madanes Training program. Dr. Joss speaks fluent French, Spanish, and conversational Portuguese.
The Love Model for Relationships
As a systemic thinker, Dr. Josiane considers each person and their relationships within a couple, a family, and a culture. Various parts of ourselves may have been denied, devalued, or repressed, at an early age. The plan is, in Rumi’s terms, “… not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within ourselves that we have built against it.” It’s an amazing plan that beg for some questions. Why do we do that? How do you get rid of these barriers? What are the ways to surrender to the flow of life and infinite possibilities within your relationships, without feeling stuck, or being cheated, lost, and/or lied to? Who can you trust without giving up on these parts of yourselves and accept love in good and bad times? Really? Is it possible to find love within, without the game of blame or shame?
Compassionate Love in Intimate Relationships
Drawing on interviews conducted with Black couples in the United States, this book explores relational resilience and identifies unique adaptation strategies that enable couples to overcome the multigenerational effects of violence and sexual mass trauma from slavery and activates compassionate love in flourishing relationships.
By applying Appreciative Inquiry (AI) methodology and family systems theory, the book captures the spiritual, emotional, and sexual dimensions in Black couple systems that gives meaning to their resilient relationships in the context of contemporary America. Within the framework of compassionate love, the book highlights the need for researchers and clinicians to include the broader cultural contexts in their sexual trauma-informed studies and interventions. Using genetic studies and empirical evidence, the volume contributes significantly to discussion around Black relationships and historical trauma and to the broader challenges within race relations in the United States.
This book will benefit researchers, academicians, and clinicians with an interest in sexual trauma, marriage, and family therapy, and couples counseling more broadly. Readers will also find this book useful when designing research in Black studies, intergenerational issues, or sexual intimacy.