Chapter 10: Accessing the Self: A Journey to Healing

In the articulation of the sociological imagination, C. Wright Mills (1959) suggests that we can understand the social world and what is happening within ourselves as specific intersections of biography and history within society. It is the “most needed quality of mind” (p. 13). Using the sociological imagination as a framework for contemplative action, I argue that by accessing the self through the examination and recognition of the social forces that facilitate the internalization of oppressive constructs, we give ourselves the power to heal.