Silent Agreements: What you don't know can hurt you.

Some people believe there are things better left unsaid or secrets that keep the balance balanced. Learn if you are partner to a "Silent Agreement" and don't even know it.

Dr Michele Owens, joins us to de-code  how the secrets we keep may be operating as acceptable, while invisible, contracts in our leadership and advocacy relationships as leaders.

If you have engaged in relationships of any kind, you have experienced silent agreements.   You may never have used this term before, but even so, silent agreements, are present in our everyday lives. Silent agreements appear, or, more accurately, live in the shadows of relationships of all varieties - in work, play and love. Silent agreements are often problematic.

Meet our evening guest, Dr Michele Owens Patterson, a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City for over twenty years. Much of her practice has focused on the concerns of Black women, couples as well as adolescents. Over her career she has provided services and consultation to hospitals, churches, colleges and other educational institutions.

She has been a clinical supervisor and mentor for emerging clinicians from a variety institutions, including Columbia University, Einstein College of Medicine and City College. She is currently the senior psychologist at Prep for Prep, an organization that promotes educational advancement and leadership. Dr. Owens-Patterson has been featured in Essence, Jet and Heart and Soul Magazines. She published a chapter in the award winning book, Psychotherapy with African American Women and is an author in the upcoming book, Psychotherapy with African American Boys. She is currently working on a book ‘Silent Agreements” with two other African American Psychologists which is due out Summer 2015.