Dr. Tenisha Warner, wife of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, is a homeschooling mother, a doctor of psychology, and the founder of River & Ember, a family storytelling company holding the thread between generations through story, ritual, reflection, and art.
Dr. Tenisha Warner
Doctor of Psychology. Mother. Founder.
Dr. Warner came to psychology the long way. She began as a sales trader at UBS Investment Bank, straight out of college, before earning a master's in counseling psychology, and then a doctorate. By the time she was doing her clinical training, she was also pregnant. So the years she spent learning how children carry anxiety, fear, grief, and the feelings too big to name, she spent growing one of her own.
She logged thousands of clinical hours with children and adults, working across anxiety, trauma, mood and personality differences, and neurodivergence, learning firsthand how a child's nervous system reaches for safety, while her daughter grew beside her. The credential and the motherhood didn't arrive separately. They arrived together.
what shapes a child is not their behavior, and not the fix, but the relationship they're held in.
Story. Ritual. Reflection. Art.
That matters, because it changed what she thought she knew.
That matters, because it changed what she thought she knew.
Underneath all of it is a single conviction:
Everything I know...
It starts with one question: what does this feeling need right now? Everything moves from there, through story, ritual, reflection, and art. It treats emotions not as something to manage, but as something to tend. The books, the Seasonal Editions, the art, they all grow from this.
Theory is one thing on a page. It is another thing entirely at two in the morning, with a small person who borrows your steadiness until they find their own. Dr. Warner believes you cannot understand a child's inner life from the outside. You have to be close enough to see it. She has been, and she still is.
Everything River & Ember makes grows from one framework: the River & Ember Method.
I learned while holding her.
It began at Career Day, when Dr. Warner, asked to explain her work to a room of small children, reached for the simplest words she had: I'm a feelings doctor.
This autumn, that work grows into a children's picture book.
The Feelings Doctor: Hidden Feelings
and with her family. It became something she wanted every child to know — that their feelings deserve care — and eventually, it became the book.
The phrase stayed with her,
The first in the series arrives September 13, 2026.
A line of handmade children's wear made from her daughter's own drawings, is being released in collaboration with family.
Imagine That — Stitched
A portion of every River & Ember piece supports the Warner Family Foundation
A separate charity she and her daughter established to honor her husband's creative legacy through scholarships for young artists, so that creative talent isn't lost to circumstance.
The relationship between a parent and a child, and the quiet, lifelong work of tending it.
All of it points back to the same place.
Dr. Tenisha Warner is available for press, speaking, and select partnership inquiries.
Dr. Tenisha Warner is a doctor of psychology and the founder of River & Ember, a family storytelling company that holds the thread between generations through story, ritual, reflection, and art. She is the author of the forthcoming picture book series The Feelings Doctor, beginning with Hidden Feelings (September 13, 2026).
A portion of every River & Ember sale supports the Warner Family Foundation, a separate 501(c)(3) honoring her husband, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and his creative legacy through scholarships for young artists.
In the Press
Frequently Asked Questions
Still wondering? These are the questions we hear most. If yours isn't here, reach out at hello@riverandemberco.com.
Dr. Tenisha Warner is the wife of Malcolm-Jamal Warner, a homeschooling mother, a doctor of psychology, and the founder of River & Ember — a family storytelling company that holds the thread between generations through story, ritual, reflection, and art. She began her career as a sales trader at UBS Investment Bank, straight out of college, before turning toward psychology — earning a master's in counseling psychology, then a doctorate — and trained as a clinician while raising her own daughter alongside the work. That combination shapes everything she makes: the conviction that what forms a child is not their behavior, but the relationship they're held in.
Yes. Tenisha Warner is the wife of Malcolm-Jamal Warner. They were married in love before they were married by paper, and his creative legacy is carried forward today through the Warner Family Foundation, which a portion of every River & Ember sale supports.
River & Ember is a family storytelling company that holds the thread between generations through story, ritual, reflection, and art. Underneath it is the River & Ember Method — the framework that guides everything the company makes, beginning with a single question: what does this feeling need right now? It treats emotions as the thing worth tending first — noticing them, honoring them, staying with them — in the belief that a child's emotional life is the foundation everything else is built on, and that when it's tended first, the rest grows from solid ground. As founder, Dr. Warner brings her training as a doctor of psychology and her experience as a mother to every piece, from the Seasonal Editions to the books.
Yes. Her first is The Feelings Doctor: Hidden Feelings, a picture book arriving September 13, 2026 — the first in a series. (She'll tell you a dissertation is the harder write, and she's only half joking.) The book grew from a moment at her daughter's Career Day, when she explained her work to a room of small children with the simplest words she had: "I'm a feelings doctor."
The Warner Family Foundation is a 501(c)(3) that Dr. Warner and her daughter established to honor Malcolm-Jamal Warner's creative legacy. It funds scholarships for young artists through the Malcolm-Jamal Warner Creative Legacy Fund, so that creative talent isn't lost to circumstance. A portion of every River & Ember purchase supports the foundation's work.
Dr. Warner is available for press, speaking, and select partnership inquiries. The best way to reach her is press@riverandemberco.com, and every note is read.
