Wellness & Healing Justice with Dr. Alisa Alvis
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.
Dr. Alvis facilitated two sessions attended by over forty people from the Caribbean region and the diaspora. Several participants disclosed that it was their first virtual healing justice session that focused on the lived experiences and wellbeing of queer people. In attendance were Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and Indigenous Caribbean participants
In addition to gathering and dialoguing, participants were also invited to read Rosamond King’s Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination and Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.
Lina, a participant from Guyana, wrote the following post-session reflection:
“I felt joy to be in community with other Queeribbean cousins, stimulated by the conversation, and hopeful about the future we're co-creating! The articulation of the specific link to disability justice is one that I especially appreciated; it really adds to/enhances my thinking and framing of community and the work we need to do.”
— Lina, Guyana
Access Dr. Alvis’ Session I slides
Access Dr. Alvis’ Session II slides
Prideful Healing in 2026
Dr. Alvis returned to the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda community this year to facilitate 12 private wellness and healing justice sessions with a few members of the Intersect Antigua-Barbuda team.
Team members learned about, and practiced, the core principles of non-violent communication (NVC). One remarked on the generative differences between 1-1 work with a therapist and being in a small group, with Dr. Alvis reflecting that healing justice work is deeply relational.
“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.
