Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Counselor Education

Fayth M. Parks, Ph.D.
Associate Professor: Counselor Education
Georgia Southern University

Education

Ph.D., Counseling Psychology, 1997
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)

M.S., Student Personnel Services and Counseling, 1980
Upsala College, East Orange, N.J.

B.A., Psychology, 1977
Upsala College, East Orange, N.J.

Fayth M. Parks is a licensed psychologist with special interest in mental health service access to rural and urban communities, poverty, cultural and linguistic competency, and bridging the health disparities gap. Her clinical experience includes mental health service delivery to rural and urban communities, substance abuse treatment, and public health HIV/AIDS prevention and outreach.  Her research investigates forms of ethnopsychology such as folk healing belief systems. Dr. Parks advocates for culturally-endorsed practices as integrative and complementary therapies to summon positive human strengths.

Dr. Parks is past co-chair, National Youth-At-Risk Conference, executive board member, Women’s and Gender Studies Program. She is past editorial board member, PsycCRITIQUES: APA Review of Books and serves as a reviewer for numerous journals.  She was honored to be appointed to the American Psychological Association’s Task Force for Multicultural Training, which was charged to advise the organization’s long‑term response to the mental health needs of survivors of Hurricane Katrina.  

Dr. Parks coordinates the counselor education program’s concentration in student services in higher education.

Selected publications

Parks, F. M. (in press) Archetypes. In I. B. Weiner & E. Craighead (Eds.). Corsini’s Encyclopedia of Psychology, 4^th edition.  New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Caldwell-Colbert, A.T., Parks, F.M., & Eshun, S. (in press). Positive psychology: African American strengths, resilience, and protective factors. In B. Neville, B. Tynes, & S. Utsey (Eds.), Handbook of African American Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Parks, F.M. (2007). Working with narratives: Coping strategies in African American folk beliefs and traditional healing practices. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 15 (1), 135-147. [Special Issue] Stress, Trauma, and Crisis: An International Journal on Poverty, Mental Health and Its Correlates.

Parks, F.M. (2003). The role of African American folk beliefs in the modern therapeutic process. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice,10 (4), 456-467.

Parks, F.M. (1999, May). Creencias y prácticas Afro-Americanas tradicionales de la salud en los Estado Unidos.  Psykhe: Revista de la Escuela de Psicologia, 8(1), 75-81. 

Parks, F.M. (2002). Standing their ground: Black women’s sacred daily lives. In C. Higgs, E. Ferguson, & B. Moss (Eds.) Stepping forward: Black women in the African diaspora. Athens: Ohio University Press.

Parks, F.M. (2000). When troubled waters rise: African American folk healing and the Bible.  In V. Wimbush (Ed.) African Americans and the Bible. New York: Continuum International Publishing.

Last updated October 29, 2008