The Research
Seventeen years of autoethnographic research.
Three published studies. One language revolution.
ESSENTFLOW™ didn't start as a business — it started as a question, and seventeen years of lived research to answer it. I am both the researcher and the primary research subject, tracking my own identity formation, suppression, substitution, and reclamation in real time.
These studies are independently published on Zenodo. They are not peer-reviewed — this is autoethnographic, self-directed research, and it's presented as exactly that. No inflated credentials, no borrowed authority. Just seventeen years of documented, lived evidence.
Too Much for the Room
The founding study. Traces the antecedent conditions of identity substitution among high-capacity Black women and introduces the core positioning of ESSENTFLOW™.
Read on Zenodo →From Suppression to Substitution
Distinguishes suppression (a behavioral act — the feeling exists but is held back) from substitution (an identity act — the entire signal system gets replaced). This distinction is foundational to the ESSENTFLOW™ framework.
Read on Zenodo →Who Walked Through the Door? Identity Substitution, the Targeting Error, and Language-Based Reclamation as Intervention
Explores identity substitution as a targeting error and positions language-based reclamation as a direct intervention.
Read on Zenodo →Core Concepts This Research Produced
Methodology Note
This research is autoethnographic and longitudinal — built from one researcher's own documented experience over seventeen years, not a clinical trial or peer-reviewed academic study. It's offered in that spirit: rigorous, honest, and transparent about what it is and isn't.
The concept of the "Superwoman Schema" was coined by Dr. Cheryl Woods-Giscombé (School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), who has published on this framework since 2010 and holds her own trademark on the Superwoman Schema Conceptual Framework™. ESSENTFLOW™ draws on her research to describe a major driver of installed-self language — full credit belongs to her original scholarship.
Explore the glossary of terms this research produced →