A therapist's systematic approach to mental wellness

TODD MALLOY

Inner Peace Counseling Center founder Todd Malloy is a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Todd Malloy is on a mission to heal. 

Malloy, founder of Inner Peace Counseling Center in Huntersville where he is a licensed marriage and family therapist, has dispensed his healing for almost two decades as a psychotherapist, certified sex therapist and certified sexuality educator to men and women across the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. 

While Malloy, 63, sees clients of all backgrounds, his interest in helping Black men is particularly keen, coming from a very personal place. 

A native of Providence, Rhode Island, Malloy’s journey to his own healing seemed stunted from the start. When he was 5 years old, Malloy’s father abandoned the family, leaving his mother to care for him and his younger brother on her own.  

“My mother told me that I was now the man of the family,” he said.

Despite his youth, it was a charge Malloy took seriously, simultaneously navigating the perilous landscape of being a young, Black, urban male lacking essential resources. 

“I wanted to do well for my family, in a legal way,” he said.

Malloy knew doing better starts with a quality education – something he did not feel he was getting in the poorly funded, largely minority public schools in his district. 

To that end, Malloy applied to and was accepted to a parochial school. Over the next four years he paid the $215 a month tuition on his own. By the time his senior year arrived, Malloy knew what he wanted to do. 

“I wanted to work in psychiatry [because] when I was a kid, life told me it was fragile,” he said. “Understanding how fragile life is, I wanted to be a resource to help people live their best life.” 

Malloy’s goals, however, were stymied. 

During an internship at a psychiatric hospital, Malloy was asked in front of white mental health professionals his career choice. 

“I was told ‘Black boys don’t do that,’” he said. “[Then] I was told how much schooling was involved – 12 years. Four years for a bachelor’s degree, four years for medical school and four to five years for residency. That scared me because I did not come from people with money. 

“It wasn’t just a dream deferred. It was a dream lost.” 

Discouraged but still eager to do well, Malloy pursued a mechanical engineering degree at the University of Hartford. Though not the field of his choice, he applied himself diligently and became a successful engineer and family man, raising four children. 

As middle age approached, though, Malloy felt a lacking.

“I had a sense of humanity which wasn’t being addressed,” Malloy revealed. “I asked myself, ‘When I die, will it have even mattered that I lived?’ [I realized] we all have to take ownership of the type of life we want to have.” 

So, at 42, Malloy started a new journey to an old dream, which included becoming an ordained minister, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as pursuing postgraduate studies. Given his “eclectic journey,” Malloy offers a systematic approach to mental wellness versus the heavily favored Freudian method. 

Besides his practice, Malloy has recently begun working as a lecturer, producer and author as well as serving on the national board of the American Association of Sexual Educators, Counselors and Therapists. 

Buoyed by field experience and an increasing list of credentials, Malloy feels his personal path combined with a deep spiritual awareness makes him an especially valuable resource to Black men in the mental health space – particularly given the underrepresentation of Black men providers and counselors. 

Statistics show that men in general are far less likely than women to seek mental health help or counseling. And Black men even more so. 

“First, men are told that they aren’t supposed to ask for help,” Malloy said. “Admitting is weakness. Admitting equals vulnerability.” 

In Black culture, toxic standards are perpetuated by the gangster/thug/lone wolf caricature. 

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