Hip-Hop Therapy

Hip-hop therapy (HHT) is a contemporary approach in mental health treatment that takes into account the impact of hip-hop culture and its capacity to promote individual and communal transformation. Edgar Tyson (1963-2018) coined the term and created the foundational model in 1996, and the approach has since evolved into a conceptual framework with global reach. HHT refers to the purposeful use of hip-hop culture by a mental health professional within the therapeutic relationship, embodying interventions that mix the culture's inherently cathartic components with established treatment models, from music therapy, poetry therapy and other expressive therapies to cognitive behavioral therapy and narrative therapy; it is presented as a culturally relevant remix of therapeutic traditions, including psychiatry, that have traditionally overlooked disenfranchised populations.