Meet Tanesha R. Johnson, Ph.D
Education
Tanesha graduated from Hampton University in 2016 with the highest honors. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with an emphasis in family and marriage. She was also a Freddye T. Davy Honors College graduate. Following her time at Hampton University, Tanesha went on to the University of Pittsburgh to complete a 1-year post-baccalaureate fellowship. While a part of the Hot Metal Bridge Fellowship program, Tanesha worked under Dr. Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal research on socio-emotional skill differences between Black and White children with similar socioeconomic status. Currently, Tanesha graduated from the Clinical Psychology Program at Saint Louis University, where she worked under the tutelage of Dr. Kira H. Banks. She earned her Master of Science degree in clinical psychology at Saint Louis University in July 2020. Tanesha earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in May 2023. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the University of Florida’s Health Sciences Center. Her long-term goals are to continue to provide evidence-based, culturally sensitive care to families and their children in the future.
Research
Her post-baccalaureate research focused on comparing the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in moderating the relationship between children’s race (White vs. Black) and their mental health outcomes. The results of her study suggested that across socioeconomic status levels, White children had better mental health outcomes when compared to their Black counterparts of similar SES.
For her Master’s thesis, she shifted her focus to examine the heterogeneity of Black Americans’ experiences. She used an archival data set and found that socioeconomic status moderated the relationship between daily and lifetime discrimination and the psychological well-being subscales. The negative relationship between discrimination and psychological well-being was significantly stronger for people of lower socioeconomic status compared to higher socioeconomic status individuals. For her dissertation, she continued to investigate how socioeconomic status might vary in middle to high-socioeconomic-status populations, specifically how the relationship between discrimination and both positive and negative mental health outcomes might look differently for Black adults from higher income backgrounds. To expand her dissertation, she won the first Robert Wheeler Endowed Assistantship, which allowed her to include positive psychological well-being as well. Her dissertation found that socioeconomic status worsened negative outcomes of depression and stress in relation to racial discrimination, while at the same time, it found that SES contributed to positive outcomes of autonomy and personal growth.
Clinical Work
Clinically, Tanesha is most interested in working with children, teens, and their families. While at Saint Louis University, Tanesha has had the opportunity to work in various settings with children and teens. Currently, she is working in an external placement at a private practice, where she serves as a psychometrist. As a budding clinician, Tanesha has worked at a public charter school, where she collaborated with teachers, school social workers, and administrative staff, as she utilized an evidence-based behavioral intervention for children with emotion dysregulation and impulse control difficulties. She has also trained at St. Louis Children’s Hospital while working with Anesthesiologists, Nurse Practitioners, Physical Therapists, and Pediatric Psychologists who specialize in chronic pain. There, Tanesha conducted brief psychosocial and pain assessments and interventions at SLCH. She has also worked with an interdisciplinary team comprised of Speech and Language pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Special Education specialists, and a clinical psychologist at SLU’s Interdisciplinary Center for Autism, where they conducted evidence-based, COVID-19 modified assessments of autism spectrum disorder. During her internship, she worked as a part of the psychology team in the children’s hospital division of UF Health, specifically in the hematology/oncology service. In this role, she provided inpatient consultation services and assessed the needs of patients who were admitted for various services, including chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, and sickle cell pain crises. Additionally, during her internship training, she gained a broad scope of experience in providing therapy services, including Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Trauma Clinic, and Adolescent Mental Health. She also worked with children and teens who presented with trauma and ASD.
Leadership & Advocacy
Tanesha has continued to develop her leadership and organizational skills while navigating supervisory and collaborative roles with students, faculty, and clients. Currently, she serves as Assistant Director of the SLU Psychological Services Center, where she is responsible for assigning cases to students and working with clinical supervisors to assign cases to students with specializations. She also serves as Student Representative to faculty for the 2021-2022 school year. Since 2020, Tanesha has been a member of the Steering Committee for the clinical psychology program’s Social Justice Group. She has also pursued service opportunities outside of her department, such as serving as a co-founder and co-organizer for the #BlackinMentalHealth social media movement and mentoring undergraduates applying for graduate school.
Finally, Tanesha has and continues to advocate on behalf of clients in various settings. For example, she advocated on behalf of Trans and other LGBTQIA+ clients by updating her department’s psychological services center paperwork to include pronouns and chosen names, updating forms within various settings to include more LGBTQIA+ friendly wording. Tanesha has advised the pediatric pain team on using appropriate pronouns and chosen names and provided resources and practical guidance on using inclusionary language and mixed pronoun usage in autism assessment reports.
