Episode #229 Liberated from Being an Emotional Mammy with Esther Armah

The Homecoming Podcast with Dr. Thema

Dr. Thema

Health & Fitness

4.9 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Filmmaker, author, and journalist, Esther Armah joins Dr. Thema to discuss the pressure and expectation of emotional caretaking placed on Black women as well as our pathway to healing and liberation. They explore the emotional and physical costs of being an emotional mammy and the psychological and social steps to freeing one's self from these societal expectations. Esther A. Armah is an author, former international award-winning journalist, film-maker and playwright. Esther is author of ‘EMOTIONAL JUSTICE: a roadmap for racial healing’ Emotional Justice is a racial healing roadmap Esther created over a 15-year period through assignment, research and community engagement in Accra, Philadelphia, Cape Town, London, Chicago and New York. She is CEO, The Armah Institute of Emotional Justice, a global non-profit devising, developing, designing and delivering programming for international human rights organizations, global philanthropy, social justice organizations and academia. As a journalist she has worked in London, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. As a playwright, she has written five plays, that have been produced and performed in New York, Chicago, and Accra. As a film-maker, her short film is called ‘…goodbye to the EMOTIONAL MAMMY.’ which centers Black women’s wellness and the emotional weight we carry. Throughout 2025, she’s done a global screening and dialogue tour for this short film across the US and Africa, in New York, Ghana, South Africa and Washington DC. Don't forget to like, subscribe, share, and comment. Music by Joy Jones.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome home, cojourners. I'm so glad you're here for another episode of the Homecoming
0:09.0	Podcast. I'm Dr. Tema, licensed psychologist, ordained minister and sacred artists, here to help facilitate your journey back home to yourself. And I have a special treat for you on today.
0:23.6	I'm excited to welcome to homecoming Esther Arma.
0:27.6	Welcome, Esther.
0:29.6	Hello, hello, Dr. Tamer.
0:31.6	It's lovely to be with you.
0:33.6	Thank you so much for the invitation.
0:34.6	Absolutely.
0:35.6	So this has been years in the making, and I'm so glad we recently got to see each other in Ghana,
0:42.0	and now you're in the States.
0:44.0	And so let me tell our audience a bit about you.
0:47.8	Esther A. Arma is an author, former international award-winning journalist, filmmaker and playwright.
0:55.0	Esther is author of Emotional Justice, a roadmap for racial healing.
1:01.0	Emotional Justice is a racial healing roadmap.
1:05.0	Esther created over a 15-year period through assignment, research, and community engagement in Accra, Philadelphia,
1:13.6	Cape Town, London, Chicago, and New York. She is CEO of the ARMA Institute of Emotional Justice,
1:22.6	a global nonprofit, devising, developing, designing, and delivering, programming for international
1:31.2	human rights organizations, global philanthropy, social justice organizations, and academia.
1:39.2	As a journalist, she has worked in London, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
1:48.5	As a playwright, she has written five plays that have been produced and performed in New York, Chicago, and Accra Ghana.
1:57.3	As a filmmaker, her short film is called Goodbye to the Emotional Mamie, which centers black women's wellness and the emotional weight we carry.
2:08.3	Throughout 2025, she's done a global screening and dialogue tour for this short film across the U.S. and Africa.
	...

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