My name is Malik Muhammad. I’m a father, husband, brother, son. I have a Ph.D. in psychology and focus on working with minorities with mental health issues and chronic pain. I put myself in prison by believing I could get away with cheating the Medicaid system. To start repaying what I owe my community, I immediately started teaching BOP-certified courses on mental health to those that are here with me. I truly love it. I see soo many undiagnosed mental health issues in prison and I see how they are often directly connected to the crimes committed that landed them here. I blame no one but myself for getting in here and am working to improve my own thinking and attitude. I am also working on a book about my experiences in here that focuses on how I use my mental health training to navigate prison in a way that builds me up and sees each situation as a learning opportunity instead of letting the negatives consume me. To help me prepare for the future, I use each day to study my clinical psychopharmacology books, I plan to complete the post-doctoral master’s program that allows psychologists to prescribe mental health medications. I know it will be harder to regain my license to practice, but I just pray daily and take one step at a time and accept help as offered.
