She is the author of five books and numerous articles on ethnicity and family therapy, and was invited by President Bill Clinton to speak at the first White House Conference on AIDS.
She continued her studies of clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, earning her Masters of Science in 1974 and her doctorate in 1977.
[3] In her work, she includes personal anecdotes for readers to relate to that give insight into her own life and family; such as her reference to "The Talk" in her book Adolescents at Risk in which she describes the discussion of police brutality with Black children.
[4] She also speaks to her experience, both personal and professional, with ensuring the inclusion of Black men in the process of treating patients, couples or families, and how other factors, like power dynamics, are crucial to understand in order to combat the assumptions in therapy based on gender.
Boyd-Franklin attributes the ideas in the first edition of Black Families in Therapy to the work she did in a community mental health center at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark, NJ.
[2][8] In 1974, Boyd-Franklin was named Thomas J. Watson Fellow, which allowed her to study language and community in East and West Africa.