The desire to analyze people is what prompted Jameca Falconer, PhD, to pursue psychology as a career. It started with some self-analysis in high school that made her recognize that her phobia about blood and needles conflicted with her early thoughts of becoming a physician.
“It got me interested in behavior,” Falconer said.
Falconer, a counseling psychologist for Logan University in Chesterfield, did become a doctor – helping others sort through matters of the mind.
She said she helps students and staff “to figure things out, to figure people out, and issues, like social issues, family issues, societal issues.” She said working through her own phobias helped her to empathize with the issues of others.
Falconer also launched her private psychotherapy practice, Diverse Ventures, LLC, in 2006, to focus on geriatric mental health services.
Falconer started working at Logan last year because she wanted to get back into higher education.
“I see the students and staff and I do psychotherapy with them, based on whatever issues they have,” Falconer said.
He various jobs involve doing therapy, teaching and doing research. “I like doing all of them,” she said, “and I feel fulfilled when I engage in all three.”
Falconer currently teaches at Maryville and Webster universities.
At Webster, she is also an intercultural research consultant, evaluating master’s students who are training to become educational psychologists.
They are evaluating the students’ level of color blindness in racial attitudes.
“It’s a color-blind racial ideology theory that we kind of worked with and developed in medical school at Mizzou,” Falconer said, “and this theory talks about the degree to which people believe that race doesn’t matter.”
She said when researchers first started working on the theory in the 1990s, “color-blind” was one of the catch phrases that people would use to prove that they weren’t racist or that race doesn’t matter.
“But now after years of assessment with this theory, we know that this is, in fact, a bad thing, to say that, ‘Oh, I don’t see color, or people,’” Falconer said.
“We want people to see the similarities as well as the differences and we think it’s especially important for teachers, because you have to notice that your students are different.”
Falconer said she is also working with the associate vice president of diversity and inclusion at Webster University, Nicole Roach, on a special project to coincide with Webster University’s upcoming 100th anniversary.
“She and I are working together to do a ‘Black Girls Rock’ at Webster,” Falconer said.
She said the student-run and student-driven program will be very similar to the awards show and the nonprofit organization.
“We are going to highlight black women who have accomplished great things in the St. Louis community – from art, education, philanthropy and a special category for Webster alumnae,” Falconer said.
In previous positions, Falconer served as an assistant professor at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Dental Medicine, and in teaching positions at Illinois State University, St. Louis Community College and University of Missouri-Columbia.
Falconer, a Pine Bluff, Arkansas native, earned her doctorate and master of arts in counseling psychology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a bachelor of arts in psychology at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi.
Much of Falconer’s community involvement has focused on increasing awareness and reducing stigma of mental health conditions in communities of color.
Geographical convenience is the reason Falconer said she will probably continue to work in St. Louis.
“I have a lot of family in Arkansas and the rest of them are in Chicago, so I’ll be close to both,” she said.
Falconer is president of the St. Louis Chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists and of the St. Louis chapter of Tougaloo College Alumni. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority and Jack and Jill of America, Inc.
Falconer and her two sons are members of Grace Bible Church.