Sankofa Coaching Method℠

The Sankofa Coaching Method℠ is a tool of applied anthropology that I developed while striving to overcome my autoimmune condition and complex trauma. It builds directly on my professional background as a social and cultural anthropologist.

In Eurocentric mental health care, a sharp divide is often drawn between the past and the future: psychotherapy is expected to focus on the past, while coaching focuses on the future. Such a split does not make sense for many cultures around the world. When I sought to overcome my autoimmunity, which eventually led me to therapy, I reached a point where I realized that psychotherapy no longer served me. I felt a lack of progress with EMDR and talk therapy that targeted the past. Admittedly, it was absolutely necessary to acknowledge what had happened and how it had impacted me. That was a painful process during which my disease activity skyrocketed at times. Ultimately, it was self-study rather than the therapy sessions themselves that saw me through. I slowly but surely realized that my focus needed to shift to the 'now' and the future. I needed to modify my ways of relating to reach a state that provided clarity, coherence and safety for my immune system—by any means necessary.

'Sankofa' is a concept of the Akan people of present-day Ghana. It means 'to go back and get it,' implying that the past should be used to inform and strengthen the present and future. While I certainly had to go back and fetch the lessons from my past, there was nothing left to 'heal' there. For me, healing lay entirely in the present, moving toward the future. As a certified trauma-informed somatic coach, it became clear that it was untenable to maintain a coaching approach that wasn’t deeply informed by a client’s past, even while remaining focused on the future. This is how the Sankofa Coaching Method℠ was birthed—integrating my anthropological methodology of assessing the past with future-oriented somatic coaching. We use trauma-informed somatic coaching to check how your body reacts to various choices or options developed during our anthropological knowledge and reflection sessions. Through energetic states, we explore which action plan—made possible by an expanded anthropological perspective—best supports your energetic balance and resonates with your system.

The Sankofa Coaching Method℠ consists of four steps:

1. The Narrative Interview: After identifying the challenge that brought you to me, we conduct a narrative interview. This is a core anthropological method where you share your life story from birth to the present.

2. Anthropological Perspectives: I present anthropological concepts, knowledge, and perspectives relevant to your specific challenge. I often work with myths, such as those of Anansi or Eshu, to introduce new perspectives and open up coping strategies.

3. Resonance and Analysis: We analyze how these ethnographic and cultural insights resonate with you. We examine what is possible within your specific cultural environment and determine if it is beneficial to challenge cultural beliefs that may be detrimental to your well-being. By seeking inspiration from indigenous worldviews, we challenge Western cultural assumptions and imperatives. The goal is to restructure your relationships and ways of relating to ensure they are coherent and prevent you from falling into undesired mental or emotional states.

4. Integration Sessions: We use techniques such as tapping (EFT), stroking, and other regulation methods to energetically balance the nervous and immune systems. This creates coherence between your physical state and the new perspectives and relational structures we developed in the previous sessions.

Applying this process to my own life contributed significantly to bringing my rheumatoid arthritis into remission.

A Note on Cultural Appropriation

As a person of European descent working with an African concept such as Sankofa, I cannot remain silent on the issue of cultural appropriation. Appropriation is yet another expression of neo-colonialism and the pervasive belief that everything in the world is available for the taking by "white" people.

I have worked unremittingly for fifteen years pro bono to forward the cause of African reparations. My legal work in this field aimed to dismantle the core arguments of reparations negationists. While I know this does not grant me an automatic right to "take," I firmly believe that we must overcome hegemonic European concepts and replace them with more holistic ones in every aspect of life.

When it comes to health—mental, physical, and holistic—Sankofa is a crucial concept. It has the power to help bring the world back forward into justice and balance while we heal individually and collectively. For me, it was life-saving in addressing and overcoming autoimmunity.

While European civilization, with all its technological progress, has driven humanity toward a path of extinction through its lifestyle, studies clearly show that Western societies have highly elevated incidences of autoimmune disease. When non-European societies become Westernized, these incidences rise. Thus, it makes even more sense to bring Sankofa into the realm of support for alleviating autoimmunity and connected complex trauma situations. Indigenous knowledges hold the potential for radical transformation and the global decolonization of thought.