Self-Study: An Ethical Imperative for Addressing Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress

Author, psychologist, and a yoga therapist educator. She is the author of the best-selling book, Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma (2020) and Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress with Yoga (2021) and is the President Emerita of the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance (BYTA) Board of Directors. Dr. Parker has been a faculty member in the Kripalu School of Integrative Yoga Therapy from 2021-2025. Her broad expertise in behavioral health and wellness includes forty years as a practicing psychologist. She is a lifelong practitioner of yoga and is well known for her pioneering efforts to blend psychology, yoga, and meditation as effective self-care strategies that can enhance emotional balance and contribute to the overall health and wellbeing of practitioners. She teaches yoga therapists, yoga teachers, and health care professionals how to utilize Restorative Yoga to support stress reduction and resilience in the face of ethnic and race-based traumatic stress. Dr. Parker has appeared as a psychologist expert on local and nationally syndicated talk shows, including numerous appearances on the Oprah Show. She was a faculty member in the Beaumont School of Yoga Therapy in the department of Integrative Medicine at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak Michigan. She was also a faculty member in the groundbreaking Co-Curricular Yoga Therapy Program at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, teaching Yoga Therapy to first- and second-year medical students as part of their academic curriculum. She was an adjunct faculty member in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She is married and the mother of one son.