Marcella Norman, MA
For years, Marcella Norman, MA, kept her childhood abuse a secret, lacking the words to share something so traumatic with her parents. It festered inside her through adolescence, filling her with anger at the world.
In her early 20s, Norman sought help from a Penn Medicine therapist. Norman, who is Black, sat across from the older, white female therapist and pronounced, “You can’t connect with me. You don’t understand what I’m going through.” What the therapist said next changed her life.
“She said, ‘I can’t understand your life or where you came from, but I do understand pain. Pain is universal,’” Norman recalled. “She validated me: ‘Yes, you’re in pain, and that’s not right.’ That was so monumental in my life.”
Empowered by her own experience in mental health treatment, Norman became a psychotherapist, determined to provide that same transformative validation to her patients. She obtained bachelor's and master’s degrees in psychology and works three jobs: as an intake therapist at a methadone clinic in West Philadelphia; a psychotherapist for children and adults at a local outpatient behavioral health clinic; and a mental health technician at Presby monitoring psychiatric patients on Wright 5.
Helping Kids Understand Mental Health
In her one-on-one work with children and families before and during the pandemic, Norman became more aware of the need to make mental health a normal topic of conversation outside of therapy sessions.
“I found that families weren’t talking about what was going on with the person who was being treated. Once they left the office, it wasn’t a conversation until the following week,” she said. “And I tell my parents that therapy, the healing, really happens outside of that hour.”
Realizing that too many families – like the one she grew up in – lack the vocabulary, awareness, or comfort to discuss mental health challenges, Norman wrote and published a children’s book, “Mental Health, What's That?” Her book talks about expressing and understanding feelings; practicing coping skills; and the similarities between physical and mental health symptoms. It also covers trauma in significant depth.
‘Why Can’t We Talk About It?’
Norman acknowledges the material may seem “pretty deep” for a children’s book, but she says her audience – members of her own community – lives with regular exposure to gun violence and other trauma. “They can understand, because this is happening all around them ... If that’s happening, why can't we talk about it?”
The book includes exercises to help families reflect on different emotions they have felt and talk about them together. The illustrations feature African-American children, as one of Norman’s goals was to normalize conversations about trauma and mental health in Black communities and thereby break the generational pattern of normalizing the trauma itself.
“I find, often in Black families, children are shielded from things deemed not appropriate for children to worry about,” Norman said. “This is a protection factor; however, we’ve come to find communicating with children is better than leaving them in the dark. They’re inquisitive and curious, and some are mature enough for some conversations.”
While Norman’s book is targeted to school-age children, Meg Spicer, BSN, RN-BC, a nurse on Wright 5, said it’s valuable for readers of all ages. Spicer keeps a copy on the patient unit to share with families.
“I’ve worked in the mental health field for over 20 years, and I have never seen a book like this,” Spicer said. “It introduces words and concepts that are often stigmatized or purposefully hidden from children. The language used and the images in the book bring attention to some hard topics without being scary or shameful.”
The response to the book and Norman’s mission has been overwhelmingly positive. Last summer, she was invited to community mental health events by the Please Touch Museum and the American Psychiatric Association, and she won a grant from the city of Philadelphia to run a series of mental health workshops for children.
Norman is currently working toward her licensed professional counselor certification, which will enable her to go into private practice. She also plans to launch a nonprofit organization to share mental health resources with underserved communities. She knows all too well that so many families have experienced generations of trauma, yet face multiple barriers to treatment, including a lack of culturally competent therapists, stigma within the community, and the high cost of care.
“Mental health is just as important as physical health,” Norman said. “We need to make it a normal conversation to talk about what’s going on.”
At Penn Medicine, we all aspire to be Difference Makers who represent the Penn Medicine Experience (PMX) in action. PMX sets a consistent standard across all of our entities and work locations to make every touchpoint an opportunity to build enduring connections with patients, families, visitors and colleagues, which is a foundational part of the UPHS Success Share Program.