The Word, the Body, and the Kinfolk: The Intersection of Transpersonal Thought with Womanist Approaches to Psychology

Since Alice Walker coined the term womanist in the early 1980s, black feminists and feminists of color have created a rich, soulful body of scholarly work. Contributions to womanist thought have emerged primarily in the fields of theology and ethics. The aim of this article is to put womanism in historical context, examine transpersonal expression in womanist scholarship, and to articulate the values that inform emotional healing in a womanist context. Womanism is spiritualized due to its original definition and subsequent development, making transpersonal thought a resonant fit for unearthing paths to authentic cultural competency in psychology and other disciplines.