{"id":117650,"date":"2023-10-09T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/?p=117650"},"modified":"2023-10-11T13:11:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T18:11:43","slug":"bianka-hardin-psy-d-searching-for-connection-finding-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/from-the-magazine\/bianka-hardin-psy-d-searching-for-connection-finding-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Bianka Hardin, Psy.D.: Searching for connection, finding community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bianka Hardin, Psy.D., owns Centered Therapy Chicago, a small group psychology practice focusing on relational, feminist, body-oriented, and trauma-informed therapy. As an alumna of and associate professor at The Chicago School and a practicum supervisor for doctoral trainees from The Chicago School and other schools, Dr. Hardin embodies the core values of the institution and integrates them into all her work.<\/p>\n

While Hardin\u2019s career may be informed by her personal and professional experiences, it is her respect and attention to other cultures that makes her the leader she is today.<\/p>\n

Born on a U.S. Air Force base in Germany to an American dad and German mother, Hardin moved every one to three years until high school, bouncing from Germany to various states in America. Her bicultural upbringing ensured transition was a normal part of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what ultimately got me interested in people\u2019s identities, cultural issues, and psychology as a whole,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cIt was challenging and also contributed a lot to who I am today in terms of just really appreciating the importance of getting to know people, understanding their culture, and adapting in new situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 20 years in the Air Force, her father retired. The family moved to Michigan, then Ohio, where she attended college to study psychology before moving to Chicago for graduate school. While she had learned to find connection wherever she lived out of necessity, Hardin craved a stable community that reflected the type of environment she grew up in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really craved going to a place that was more diverse,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cGrowing up with a mother who is an immigrant and having grandparents who didn’t speak English, I had to navigate two cultures. It got me really interested in the importance of understanding our identities and having a soft spot for and interest in people who come to the U.S. from other countries. I want to learn about their journeys, their stories, opportunities, and barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n

She chose The Chicago School to earn her Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology because the school offered a multicultural competence concentration through which she could dive deeper into cultural and identity issues. It was the start of a long relationship with The Chicago School, where she still teaches and supervises.<\/p>\n

Upon graduating, she embarked on what she calls three separate chapters in her career, each one building on the other. The first chapter was her postdoctoral fellowship at the Village of Hoffman Estates Department of Health and Human Services in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, working in the community to provide health and mental health services to residents who couldn\u2019t traditionally access them. The second chapter was working full time at The Chicago School to start the child and adolescent track in the Clinical Psy.D. department. The third and most recent chapter was starting a private practice, Centered Therapy Chicago (CTC), a trauma-informed practice that seeks to support clients in their healing and to understand and appreciate a person\u2019s full humanity and experience. At CTC, clients are recognized as resilient and complex individuals who are so much more than their trauma.
\n\u201cI wasn’t meant to be in an office by myself seeing clients,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cI was meant to be in the community connecting and growing with others on a team. To me, that meant creating a practice that did just that.\u201d<\/p>\n

CTC is a place to learn and grow and is even a practicum site for students at The Chicago School and other professional schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love learning. I love training. I love being a supervisor. We’re going into our fifth or sixth cohort of being a practicum site here at CTC. It’s thrilling to be a part of a student\u2019s professional journey. We\u2019ve even started having people come back for their postdocs after being practicum students,\u201d Hardin says.<\/p>\n

She was inspired to imbue her practice with the community work, training, and team building from the first and second chapters of her career.<\/p>\n

She also took inspiration from her personal life. Having searched for connectedness so much when she was young, she knew how community could be an integral element of healing and prevention. Hardin sought to make that a key tenet of her practice, reminding her clinicians that people are wired for connection.<\/p>\n

In addition to this community focus, Hardin wanted to ensure her practice was trauma-informed. She was deeply impacted by a trauma class she took at The Chicago School when she was earning her Psy.D. At the time, a lot of people weren\u2019t learning about trauma. To her, it was both critically needed and far too rare, something that still resonates for her and her practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are living through a collective trauma in terms of what’s happening in our society and the increased experiences of discrimination and oppression. People learning and knowing about trauma should just be infused into all graduate curricula and be a part of continuing education for therapists,\u201d Hardin says.<\/p>\n

Hardin\u2019s intention is to infuse cultural awareness and cultural humility into everything at her practice, and she continuously learns about cultural competence and humility from the early career therapists and practicum students at CTC. Hardin says she received a solid foundation and appreciation of cultural competence at The Chicago School and also recognizes learning from a younger generation of therapists is paramount to her development as a psychologist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe practicum trainees are committed to cultural competence,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cThey want to integrate social justice into their work with clients. They are really interested in talking about their identities and the identities of their clients and intersectionality. And it\u2019s just a part of their vocabulary and values. When I was a student and teaching diversity, I did not see the level of commitment to these issues that I see today. It\u2019s clear that The Chicago School\u2019s emphasis on this is working and this is so refreshing and needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved being a student at The Chicago school,\u201d Hardin adds. \u201cIt was just such an exciting time to learn to become a trauma therapist, which was less prevalent at the time, and really get into coursework focused on multicultural competence and cultural diversity,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cIt felt like the school was providing many opportunities for me to dive deep into really important areas that still influence who I am as a psychologist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Hardin\u2019s love and pursuit of learning keeps those values top of mind. Whether it\u2019s with her own clients, clinicians, or students, Hardin rises to the occasion every time to be someone others can look to, and to never rest on her laurels.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs an ethical, competent psychologist, we need to be sharpening our own saws so that we can keep up with what’s going on in the field. I think lifelong learning is essential for all of us,\u201d Hardin says. \u201cIt’s so important for us to just constantly be thinking about our own identities, the fluidity of identity, our clients\u2019 identities and how social, political, macro system issues impact our health and mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bianka Hardin, Psy.D., owns Centered Therapy Chicago, a small group psychology practice focusing on relational, feminist, body-oriented, and trauma-informed therapy. As an alumna of and associate professor at The Chicago School and a practicum supervisor for doctoral trainees from The Chicago School and other schools, Dr. Hardin embodies the core values of the institution and integrates them into all her work. While Hardin\u2019s career may be informed by her personal and professional experiences, it is her respect and attention to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":117661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[1369],"coauthors":[1036],"class_list":["post-117650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-magazine","tag-distinguished-alumni"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBianka Hardin, Psy.D.: Searching for connection, finding community - Insight Digital Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After growing up around the world, Bianka Hardin prioritizes connecting with others.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thechicagoschool.edu\/insight\/from-the-magazine\/bianka-hardin-psy-d-searching-for-connection-finding-community\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bianka Hardin, Psy.D.: Searching for connection, finding community - 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