In a city plagued by gun violence, one therapist hopes she has found a way to break the cycle, and she's offering the service free to youngsters.
," an ABC News series examining the level of gun violence in the U.S. -- and what can be done about it.The city is a fraction of the size of New York, yet it has 18% more homicides.
While there are free therapy services in Philadelphia and elsewhere designed to address the impact of gun violence on youth and communities, one licensed therapist born and raised in West Philadelphia has started using her trade to try to help heal the psychological wounds that gunfire continues to inflict on the youth of her hometown and break the cycle of violence.
Philadelphia City Councilmember Kenyatta Johnson is chair of the City Council's Special Committee on Gun Violence Prevention, which he helped create in 2017 to fight gun violence. Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia believe gun violence not only affects victims and their families but kids under 17 who live in the area where it occurs.
This pushes her to continue her work, with the"ultimate goal" of seeing their lives change, she said, adding that she wants her clients to be able to live peacefully and play outside while others in the community can also feel safe again. "So, in the sense, people should get therapy for anxiety but ultimately the problem isn't coming because there's something wrong with their brain. The problem is coming because there are too many guns and not enough policy, not enough good policy, so ultimately you have to fix society in addition to treating their individual symptoms," he said.
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