We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Priscilla Borkor, LCSW a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Priscilla, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
“Become who you needed when you were younger” is my life’s mantra. I found my purpose through the challenging experience of immigrating to New York City as a teenager. I realized I wanted to become the emotionally safe adult I needed when I was younger. This led me to pursue a career in social work and psychotherapy, where I found deep meaning in helping others and providing emotional and mental relief. I also discovered the importance of curating therapeutic spaces within my mental health practice, a space that facilitates acceptance, challenging and reframing distorted perceptions brought on by trauma, and creating a sense of community for those in need. Through my faith, psychodynamic therapy, Beauty initiatives, and acts of service, I feel fulfilled when I can reduce others’ pain and provide comfort and insight to vulnerable populations and high-achieving BIPOC. This has led me to dedicate my life to building, serving, and healing trauma-impacted clients and communities.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Hello there, I am Priscilla Borkor. I’m a Beauty and Wellness advisor.
I am the CEO and Clinical Director of Borkor Psychotherapy Services PLLC, Beautiful, an at-risk Teen Support Group NPO, Therapy Meets Jesus LLC, and Prissy B Luxury Hair LLC. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a wealth of experience in mental and medical health and passionate about beauty and mental and emotional well-being.
Borkor Psychotherapy Services, PLLC is a Trauma Informed Private Practice providing culturally competent mental wellness services to individuals, famililies, and groups.
My practice focuses on providing psychodynamic psychotherapy. Simultaneously, the consultancy aspect of Borkor Psychotherapy Services PLLC provides Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Wellness Initiative support to corporations and Schools through the provision of mental health and wellness Professional Development and training.
I also Founded and operate Beautiful, a not-for-profit Support group. Beautiful is a youth-at-risk social and emotional wellness intervention program for middle and high school students. We strive to equip at-risk youth with tools such as hope and resilience. ‘Beautiful’ has a unique mentorship construct designed to guide young women to discover their identity, beauty, and self-worth, to be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, lips of laughter, and a warm, accepting embrace.
Through my faith-based practice, Therapy Meets Jesus LLC, I offer faith-based mental wellness services: psychotherapy that combines the benefits of behavioral therapies and faith in the healing power of Jesus Christ.
Through my beauty brand, Prissy B Luxury Hair Extensions. I provide beauty and grooming services through ethically sourced raw hair extensions. Prissy B Luxury Hair blends beauty with wellness to help you look and feel amazing.
The most exciting aspect of my work is meeting strangers and leaving as a family at the end of our work together. It never fails to warm my heart and validate my purpose whenever clients, be they individuals or groups, share testimonials of their healing and my role as a facilitator on their journey to wholeness. There’s something invigorating about helping others find their voice and reclaim their wellness.
Growing up in Ghana, my father, Mr. Borkor, may his soul rest in peace. He was a very stylish and loving man whose love for building and developing community is commemorated in his hometown of Krobo Odumasi, Ghana, with a signboard. I watched my father strive for communal success with style while fervently investing in giving and supporting his community and village financially and by being present. My siblings and I watched our dad take in strangers and family members, raise them, and fund their education and family’s well-being. He paid for most of our church building and funded many other community development initiatives. He was an educated teacher who eventually became an entrepreneur who pioneered, owned, and operated many medical pharmacies throughout Ghana. It’s an honor to know that my passion for building community through beauty and wellness is a legacy I’m blessed to continue developing.
I’m happy and thrilled to share that Borkor Psychotherapy Services has an upcoming Spring 2024 launch of a Wellness app: Thrive Guide: Your Wellness Companion. We can’t wait to share the carefully curated wellness guide with you. We aim to guide and nurture your journey to wholeness with this app.
We are also launching a Therapist Collective, MyTherapyAdivisor.com, To provide clinical supervision, guidance, and therapeutic relief resources for new therapists navigating the world of psychotherapy and private practices.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Good question. The three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my journey and my advice are:
Resilience: Resilience was most impactful because it impacted my ability to remain mentally sound despite facing debilitating trauma and difficulties. Prolonged exposure is what turns pain into suffering. Therefore, your approach to pain and suffering determines whether you will heal and transform or get stuck and regress. Having a positive outlook and utilizing your pain as a catalyst for the field/area you were created to impact helps you heal and transform rather than sitting in pain and getting stagnant and suffering. When you see a void in your life, practice capitalizing on the deficit by allowing yourself to believe that you were created to dominate the lack or void you see in your life. Often, you struggle the most in the field or area in which you were created to influence and dominate. So, resiliency helped me to change the lens through which I saw my adolescent trauma, and it turned into an open door for me to serve and build my career.
Self-starter: innovative, enterprising. “No one is coming” is a harsh but radical acceptance truth that will motivate you to stop waiting for Superman, mourn and grieve your loss, be able to hold space for both grieve and gratitude and then allow you to become the safe adult you needed when you were younger. YOU are rescuing YOU, not taking no for an answer unless it pertains to other’s rights to self-determination. When I won my first grant For Beautiful, At-risk Youth Support Group. It was years after doing hard work of going from one community center to another while in undergrad and working a full-time job inquiring about the needs of at-risk youth and how I could be of service. I had a passion; I didn’t have many resources, but I knew adolescent girls were suffering in silence and that my program could save a life and help change the trajectory of participants’ lives. Becoming your own supper hero helps you to take initiative, even with limited to no resources, because you are committed to becoming the safe adult you or the persons you are serving need.
Optimistic Faith: You must be convinced that everything works for your good. You have yet to meet everyone who will love you, and what is meant for you will not pass you by. Even the most painful and traumatizing experience. It’s okay to mourn; we’re human; therefore, pain is inevitable. However, having or finding faith in God allowed me to conceptualize the end goal even when I was penniless and deeply saddened by life. I persisted because my faith encouraged and motivated me. You have to believe that you have the capacity to hold space for both grief and gratitude when faced with what seems like endless grief through loss or trauma.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Yes, I am looking for folks to partner and collaborate with. My practice is currently hiring independent contractor therapists. If you are a licensed master social worker (LMSW) or a licensed mental health clinician (LMHC), we are looking to hire more clinicians into the practice now. The WIN for you is that when you’re ready to establish your practice, you can leave with your clients, and we will support and guide you as needed.
My mental health app, Thrive Guide: Your Wellness Companion, is launching in late winter/spring 2024. I welcome all mental health providers willing to provide meditation guides. If you would like to be listed as a therapist, please feel free to reach out so we can add you to our therapist directory.
Our Therapists Collective: MyTherapyGuide.com is launching soon; we welcome LCSWs and psychologists willing to educate and provide guidance and clinical supervision.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.borkorpsychotherapyservices.com, www.prissyb.com and www.therapymeetsjesus.com
- Instagram: Borkor_Psychotherapy, Everything_Prisssy and Therapy_Meets_Jesus
- Facebook: Priscilla Borkor, LCSW
- Linkedin: Priscilla Borkor, LCSW
- Twitter: @Borkor_Psych
- Youtube: Priscilla Borkor, LCSW
- Other: Tiktok: @borkor_psychotherapy
Image Credits
Dirk Anthony
