How this Montreal psychotherapist is using storytelling to break down mental health barriers

CBC Quebec is highlighting people from the province's Black communities who are giving back, inspiring others and helping to shape our future. These are the 2023 Black Changemakers.

Lisa Ndejuru loves stories: the ones we tell each other and the ones we tell ourselves.

As a psychotherapist in Montreal, Ndejuru has heard a lot of them. But the first story she had to unravel was her own: as the daughter of Rwandan refugees, she struggled to put a narrative to her own family history.

"What's in the silences? There's so many silences," she laments. "People don't talk about these things."

Ndejuru had so many questions: about her roots, her family's story, and what that meant for her own identity, as she carried the weight of her parents' expectations.

Dr. Lisa Ndejuru on solving your lifes equation

2 years ago

Duration 4:46

Dr. Lisa Ndejuru is a psychotherapist, a leader in mental health advocacy and a storyteller. She is also a 2023 CBC Black Changemaker. Producer Dionne Codrington strolled through Jeanne-Mance Park to chat about community care, tracing ancestral paths and her definition of home.

For people from communities that survived colonization, she said, there's also a lot of questions about their history. Were their ancestors weak? Did they fail, because they "lost" and were colonized?

Those are the kinds of stories that Ndejuru digs into.

"It's about healing from those stories that we inherit. It's about making sense of the silences and making meaning for ourselves," she said. "Crafting the kinds of lives that we want to live."

'Collective care' circles

Ndejuru knows something about inheriting stories. In addition to her work in mental health, she has been researching spoken history, including the Rwandan tradition of oral storytelling.

"The idea is that they should remind people who they are and where they come from," she explains.

People still craft their identities with stories, she said. As Ndejuru sees it, many mental health struggles come not just from traumatic events, but how we characterize them after the fact "the stories we tell ourselves," she says.

Samanta Nyinawumuntu, the founder of Montreal's Black Healing Centre, has seen first-hand the impact of Ndejuru's work. The pair worked together to found collective care circles, where Black women gathered for communal sessions led by Ndejuru.

That approach to healing is common in Black communities, said Nyinawumuntu, "but it hasn't necessarily made its way into institutions to become 'legitimate.'"

Those institutions themselves can themselves be a barrier to Black folks seeking care, Nyinawumuntu said.

Ndejuru said she encourages people to start this kind of healing work on their own.

"Even if you go and see a specialist or an expert, they're not going to do it for you," she said. "No, you are working on your own story."

Without your own impetus, it won't happen, said Ndejuru.

"I think that people need to take back that piece."

The Black Changemakers is a special series recognizing individuals who, regardless of background or industry, are driven to create a positive impact in their community. From tackling problems to showing small gestures of kindness on a daily basis, these changemakers are making a difference and inspiring others.Meet all the changemakers here.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check outBeing Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of.You can read more stories here.