About

Helen A Neville is the Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology, a professor of Educational Psychology and African American Studies, and a Center for Advanced Studies Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before joining Illinois in 2001, she was on the faculty at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she co-founded and co-directed the Center for Multicultural Research, Training, and Consultation. Dr. Neville has held various leadership positions on campus and nationally, including being a Provost Fellow, participating in the CIC/Big 10 Academic Leadership Academy, and serving as past president of the Society of Counseling Psychology and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race. She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and has been actively involved in the Association of Black Psychologists, serving on their Board of Directors.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Psychology
• Gender studies
• Psychotherapist
• Social psychology
• Epistemology
• Pedagogy
• Criminology
• Law
• Public relations

Selected publications

• From collective restriction to critical action: the indirect effects of critical motivation and radical hope

  Frontiers in Psychiatry · 2026-04-27

  articleOpen access

  Introduction: Historically, Women of Color (WOC) in the United States have experienced systemic restrictions to their freedom and autonomy, which can have a lasting impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Conceptually, this type of collective autonomy restriction (CAR) experience may be associated with increased critical consciousness (CC), reflected in greater awareness of social and systemic oppression, commitment to and belief in one's capacity to address social issues, and engagement in action; however, there is a dearth of research examining this association. Building on critical consciousness and hope literatures, we hypothesized that the association between CAR and critical action would be explained through serial pathways of increased critical motivation and greater radical or collective hope. Materials and Methods: A sample of 408 WOC completed an online survey administered through Prolific and hosted on Qualtrics. The survey included indicators of CAR, critical consciousness (critical motivation and critical actions), psychological hope, and radical hope. Results: We conducted structural equation modeling to test a serial mediation model exploring the associations among CAR, critical motivation, hope, and critical action. Findings indicated the association between CAR and critical action was fully mediated by the proposed serial mediation pathways (CAR → Critical Motivation → Radical Hope → Critical Action). The pathway through radical hope was stronger than through psychological hope. The direct effect of CAR on critical action was non-significant, indicating full mediation. Discussion: These results highlight the role of radical hope as a potential pathway connecting critical awareness of collective autonomy restriction and critical motivation to engage in critical action aimed at social change. We extend the existing literature by demonstrating that awareness of oppression and motivation alone may be insufficient to explain the link between the first two dimensions of critical consciousness (critical reflection and critical motivation) and critical action. Limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• William E. Cross, Jr. (1940–2024).

  American Psychologist · 2025-04-07

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Presents an obituary for Dr. William E. Cross, Jr. Dr. Cross's educational and psychological careers are summarized and professional recognitions and awards are noted. It is noted that his nigrescence theory revolutionized research on Black racial identity and transformed understanding of race, ethnicity, and culture. Cross's theories provided a foundation for several widely used measures of racial identity, y, including the Racial Identity Attitude Scale (1981), the Cross Racial Identity Scale (2001), and the Cross Ethnic-Racial Identity Scale (2019), which was an adaptation of the Cross Racial Identity Scale for use with people from multiple ethnic and racial groups. His psychological research was rooted in the sociohistorical realities of the Black experience, helped challenge dominant, "damage-centered" narratives in psychology. Instead, he emphasized the strength, complexity, and resilience of Black communities, changing the way we approach racial identity and consciousness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Siasa na Jamii: Pressing Social Concerns and Civic Engagement Among Secondary School Students in Tanzania

  Journal of Black Psychology · 2025-05-02

  articleCorresponding

  In this study, we explored Tanzanian secondary school students’ identification of pressing concerns in their daily lives and their civic engagement actions. Data were collected in two phases. In Phase 1, 48 boys and girls in the Dar es Salaam and Pwani regions of Tanzania participated in one of eight focus groups. Using thematic analysis, we identified initial themes. In Phase 2, two additional focus groups were conducted with 13 students in a girls’ school in Dar es Salaam to explore in greater detail the themes, especially those related to girls and women. Using thematic analysis across the two phases we identified eight interlocking pressing concerns discussed by the youth: Corruption/Misuse of Resources, Poverty and Unemployment, Limited Resources, Gender-Based Violence and Discrimination, Bias and Conflict, Diminished School and Learning Environment, Diminished Quality of Life and Future Potential, and Community Health. Youth engaged in a range of civic actions, including educating self and others, joining student groups, and being a leader and role model.

  PublisherDOI

• The Ancestors are Pleased: The Scholarly and Mentoring Contributions of Suzette Speight

  The Counseling Psychologist · 2025-11-01

  article

  For some, social justice is a value. For others, it is an action verb and how they enact their values daily. For Dr. Suzette Speight, social justice was core to who she was, which was evident through her many scholarly contributions to counseling psychology, Black psychology, and beyond, through her mentoring and leadership, and through her impact on countless students, peers, and community members. If you knew Suzette, you know she did not hold back or hesitate to challenge injustice. And she definitely didn’t accept it as an inevitability. Instead, she worked to combat and dismantle injustice. She not only embodied counseling psychology and Black Psychology values, but she also helped to shape them. Writing about her legacy is not easy because she was gone too soon. Yet, in other ways, her legacy writes itself because of all she gave this profession and this world.

  PublisherDOI

• Epistemological oppression and racism—Failure to see the forest from the trees: Reply to Mckay and Koppelman-White (2025) and Strambler (2025).

  American Psychologist · 2025-09-01

  article

  The critiques of Sue et al. (see record 2025-04512-010) by McKay and Koppelman-White (see record 2026-59464-001) and Strambler (see record 2026-59464-002) are examples of being trapped by a White Western epistemology/ontology that prevents them from "seeing the forest from the trees." They cling to an unenlightened view of Enlightenment values, attribute racism in counseling and psychotherapy to reside primarily in individual therapists and not in systems of power and privilege, fail to consider the legitimacy of indigenous worldviews, and unknowingly engage in epistemological oppression. We argue that epistemological and definitional power oppresses, denigrates, and harms people of color. We assert that decolonizing psychology will result in liberation not only for people of color but also for the mental health professions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Reclaiming love, wisdom, and healing through decolonial and liberation psychologies: A call to action.

  American Psychologist · 2025-05-01 · 8 citations

  article

  This special issue, an outgrowth of Dr. Thema Bryant's 2023 American Psychological Association presidential initiatives, highlights the practical application of decolonial and liberation psychologies. Contributors to this issue address the diverse lived experiences of people of the Global Majority and prioritize the reclamation of epistemologies and perspectives that have been marginalized, excluded, or erased from most applications and practices of psychology. Following a brief introduction to decolonial and liberation psychologies, we express our gratitude to those who have inspired our dreams of new ways of doing psychology and also reflect on the challenging global crises and life challenges that have informed our editing and writing. We describe our decolonial editorial process that intentionally incorporated the humanizing, holistic, restorative, and communal values of liberating psychologies. Brief descriptions of the 16 articles in this special issue are organized around three interrelated themes-reclaiming love, reclaiming wisdom, and reclaiming healing-and articulate how these themes are applied across a range of healing, educational, and community settings that serve persons with diverse social identities across multiple regions around the globe. The entire project is rooted in the principles and values of decolonial and liberation psychologies, which we outline in a manifesto that reflects our guiding vision, serves as a call to action, and emphasizes healing practices infused with love, wisdom, joy, and inclusion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• The iBelong Scale: Construction and validation of a measure of racial–ethnic–cultural belonging.

  Journal of Counseling Psychology · 2024-01-25 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  The purpose of this study was to develop a measure of racial-ethnic-cultural (REC) belonging for Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC). The iBelong Scale was designed to assess the multidimensional components of REC belonging across diverse BIPOC groups. The scale was constructed based on a grounded conceptual framework of REC belonging, and the initial pool of items received feedback from community members and content experts. Validation of the iBelong Scale comprised data from 808 BIPOC participants collected across three interrelated studies for the purposes of initial validation, construct validity, and test-retest reliability. In Study 1, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a 25-item scale with five factors: (a) Home, (b) Connection, (c) Authenticity, (d) REC Thriving, and (e) Self-Definition. Results from Study 2's confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the five-factor model was an acceptable fit of the data and the best fit among competing models. Measurement invariance was assessed, and results indicated that the iBelong Scale measures REC belonging similarly across differing BIPOC groups. The iBelong Scale was related to a range of measures in theoretically expected ways, including positive associations with general belonging, racial/ethnic identity, and general well-being, and negative associations with loneliness and REC nonbelonging. Findings from Study 3 indicated the test-retest reliability of the iBelong Scale over a 2-week period. Limitations of the studies and implications for research and practice are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• iBelong Scale

  PsycTESTS Dataset · 2024-01-01

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Justice & Joy: Transforming Healing Praxis in Counseling Psychology and Beyond

  The Counseling Psychologist · 2024-11-01 · 8 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Amid today's polycrisis—marked by global violence, chaos, and uncertainty—there is an urgent imperative for healing. In this reimagined presidential address, I advocate for centering justice and joy as powerful forces for healing, which is a core value of the Society of Counseling Psychology (SCP). I share SCP's yearlong activities exploring personal and collective healing. Drawing from interdisciplinary research, critical dialogue, and my experiences co-teaching a course on this topic, I introduce a framework outlining six healing ingredients of joy: deep connection, existential recognition, flow, shared beliefs and actions, radical hope, and self-determination/freedom/liberation. Before presenting this framework, I examine Black joy as a counter to the epistemic violence that often erases the contributions of Black scholars. The proposed new framework portrays joy not only as a personal emotion, but as a collective assertion of humanity. I conclude with recommendations to advance healing practices in research, training, and practice.

  PublisherDOI

• Leadership, Impact, and Institutional Change

  2024-04-23

  book-chapter

  In this conversation, psychologists Helen Neville, Larke Huang, and Joseph Gone speak with editors Doris F. Chang and Linda Lausell Bryant about their pathways to leadership, the challenges of transforming institutions – higher education, the federal government, and the mental health professions – and how they navigate barriers and competing demands as BIPOC leaders. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Lisa B. Spanierman

  20 shared

• Jioni A. Lewis

  University of Maryland, College Park

  16 shared

• Bryana H. French

  University of St. Thomas - Minnesota

  11 shared

• Mary J. Heppner

  8 shared

• Chalmer E. Thompson

  8 shared

• Brenda Lee

  7 shared

• Alex L. Pieterse

  6 shared

• Sundiata Keita Cha–Jua

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  6 shared

Awards & honors

• Association of Black Psychologists’ Distinguished Psychologi…
• APA Minority Fellowship Award
• Dalmas Taylor Award for Outstanding Research Contribution
• APA Graduate Students Kenneth and Mamie Clark Award
• APA Division 45 Charles and Shirley Thomas Award for mentori…