Wellness & Healing Justice
In late 2024, Intersect Antigua-Barbuda launched its inaugural healing justice programme titled Prideful Healing: Wellness in the Queeribbean.
This programme and its facilitators model healing pathways that address the tensions between the personal and the structural through the provision of free wellness and healing justice sessions for the general public, particularly Queeribbean people. While these sessions are not therapy, they aim to support participants in developing the capacity to make politically conscious decisions about their healing journeys.
Prideful Healing recognizes that a justice-oriented wellness programme must attend to the histories of violence that have shaped relation today – including coloniality and the role it has played to constrict intimacy and wellness, from confining gender binaries to heteropatriarchy to heteronormativity.
Dr. Alvis’ primary aims for her sessions included the following:
The development of a nuanced understanding of "Queeribbean" identity and its role in shaping both individual and collective healing pathways, with attention to the impacts of heteronormativity, colonialism, and systemic oppression.
Gaining tools and language to articulate personal and communal experiences of trauma and resilience, particularly in the context of continuous traumatic stress and disability justice, empowering them to seek healing modalities tailored to their needs.
Participants were also invited to read Rosamond King’s Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
Prideful Healing in 2026
Dr. Alvis has returned to the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda community this year to facilitate private wellness and healing justice sessions with the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda team.
The team is also planning a few more public-facing healing justice sessions with more incredible facilitators, with the next scheduled for April.
“Resistance is not just about survival, but about thriving. Queer Caribbean bodies resist by being & becoming, constantly redefining themselves outside of colonial and heteronormative frameworks.”
Access the complete programme guide, which includes more key takeaways from the Intersect team and participants and PowerPoint slides prepared by Dr. Alvis.
About Dr. Alvis
Alisa Alvis (they/she) is a School and Clinical Psychologist. Dr. Alvis has been a therapist for over 15 years with experience in the Caribbean, UK, USA, and Canada. They work in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment as Clinical Psychologist and Director of Mental Health Services.
They are also the founder and clinical director of Alvis and Associates, a private practice which provides a range of psychotherapeutic services to individuals, couples, and groups, and consultative services for businesses. Dr. Alvis has particular interest in the needs of women, girls, members of the LGBTQAI+ community and other underserved and minoritized populations.
Dr. Alvis is an active member of the Rotary Club of St. Vincent, and currently serves as the Chair of the District 7030 Mental Health Program.
