Mission:

Hello you lovely humans! My name is Maleah Cummings. I am trained and licensed as a clinical psychologist, but I prefer to identify as much more than that. I am also a mom, community activist, teacher, storyteller, mentor and healer. I love all things human growth and development.  I am well read and deeply curious, with an endless appetite for all things complex, contradictory and paradoxical.  I enjoy the challenge of mastering new skills, and I am eternally grateful for the diverse and often extreme nature of my educational and work experiences. Those experiences offered me perspectives that have been informative in my therapy practice, but even more so in my understanding of the human experience. I have a passion for teaching and storytelling, and am regularly influenced and inspired by the works of Brene Brown, Esther Perel, Dr. Dan Siegel, and Jon Kabat-Zinn to name a few.  

Over the years, I have found myself thinking beyond my own specialty, and incorporating the knowledge of sociologists, ecologists, economists, philosophers, neuroscientists and more. I have always been a bit of a natural qualitative researcher. After COVID-19 hit, I began to see the common themes and struggles that many humans, including myself, experienced during the pandemic. The world was going through a crisis, and we human beings struggled to cope and navigate through the enormous changes and uncertainty in front of us. We have done a lot to advance technology and other intellectual endeavors. But I think we’ve also seen what has been left behind.  Those softer skills around feelings and relationships.

I want to help be part of helping people be better and live better on a larger scale. I believe that we can help people strengthen their psychological immunity through boosting emotional intelligence and mental fitness, fostering resilience, and incorporating more helpful skills and strategies. Being human is hard. Relationships, whether that be with self or others are also hard. I can believe that We. Can. Be. Better.

Education:

PsyD - Chicago School of Professional Psychology