The Need To Know Group administers many programs as a vehicle for

addressing intrapersonal and interpersonal concerns that impact all of us as we navigate the garden of life -- skipping past the weeds so we can pick the beautiful flowers. One of our most powerful offerings is the SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)®, to which we dedicate this site.

In addition to the information you will find on this website, the SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)® Project offers seminars, workshops, classes, book clubs, lectures, symposia, and conferences designed to upgrade the psychological and physical quality of Black women's lives, and to positively affect our overall well-being.  Our seminars, workshops, symposia, conferences, etcetera are usually open to all (female and male), just as everyone is invited to peruse our website!  Drink the site up!

The Need To Know Group  is composed of consultants in the fields of education, mental health, medicine, law, sociology, history, literature, and technology, among other areas; and they are available to conduct workshops, seminars, symposia, and ongoing programming on a variety of topics that the consultants consider important to the social and psychological health of various communities.  Collectively and individually our consultants have tremendous experience, including working on many college campuses and in several workplace environments. We craft workshops on a variety of topics for a diverse range of corporate and community groups, and, among other things, we specialize in professional development training for educators who instruct African American students.

Using a battery of tools and a repertoire of techniques, The Need To Know Group  specializes in helping people view troubling social issues and personal problems within the context of a combined historical, sociological, political, psychological, legal, and economic analysis.  We probe both the interior and the exterior:  Why do we hold on to certain thought patterns and behaviors that we can recognize as negative and destructive?  What is the interplay between the powerful and omnipresent media and the individual’s ability to “think for himself or herself?”  On the other hand, who is allowed to participate in the production of knowledge – who are the producers and who are the consumers?  What are the costs and benefits of pervasive (and implicitly accepted) modes of thought?  Who (or what group) benefits and why?  Who (or what group) bears the costs?  How do we remediate without further oppression?

The Need To Know Group   exists to fill profound gaps in the marketplace of ideas – gaps that encourage people to be at odds with each other and that help generate internal, intrapsychic conflicts.  Led by Dr. Rhonda Sherrod, a lawyer, former college educator, and licensed psychologist, we provide highly informative programming that stimulates rigorous debate and challenges deeply rooted assumptions and fallacies that are often explicitly or implicitly reinforced by this society. 

In our workshops and seminars, we strive to create a stimulating environment that supports self-governing thinkers.  Participants are strongly but gently encouraged to freely and comfortably articulate, express, and explore their thoughts and ideas, and to interrogate their established and internalized beliefs and operating values.  We want participants to critically examine and understand how specific concepts work at the global, national, local, and individual level and to investigate whether their modes of operation work towards their benefit or to their detriment.

The aim of The Need To Know Group  is to liberate minds, transform lives, help revolutionize societies, and promote the deconstruction and transgression of all artificial boundaries.  We want to help uproot, examine, and eradicate destructive thought patterns, vaguely defined theoretical frameworks, and maladaptive behaviors.  We seek to make sound information and knowledge accessible and irresistible to our participants.  Our quest is to engage each participant’s creativity, imagination, and intellectual firepower, as well as the essence of his or her spirit, and facilitate the participant’s movement on a trajectory toward a better understanding of self and interpersonal relationships, as well as of the complex sociopolitical dynamics that each of us has to navigate.

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The Need To Know Group  was founded by Rhonda Sherrod, J.D.,Ph.D., who conceived SHE (Surviving, Healing and Evolving) as a mechanism for helping Black women heal.  Dr. Sherrod is a lawyer, clinical psychologist, and educator based in Chicago, Illinois and Birmingham, Alabama. 

The Need To Know Group website, which features a full bio on Dr. Rhonda Sherrod, and more info about The Need To know Group, can be accessed at: www.theneedtoknow.com.