When I graduated from Elmhurst College I had enough credits for both my major in sociology and another in psychology. My next degree was from the University of Chicago and Chicago Theological Seminary with a special emphasis on Religion and Personality. The theory of counseling taught at the University of Chicago was "client-centered therapy" developed by Carl Rogers, Ph.D. an early challenger to Freud's Psychoanalytic method. My internship while I studied at Chicago was in Campus Ministry at the University of Washington in Seattle.
While on my internship in Seattle, I met the psychologist who sarted the psycholgy department at the University of Washington. He introduced me to the field of psychological testing. I found my interst moving from wanting to be a minister to students to an interest in counseling. That interest blossomed four years after I graduated from seminary when I had an opportunity for an internship in Clinical Pastoral Education at St. Louis State Hospital. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) is a program that teaches clergy skills in human relations.
During my internship in CPE I arranged for another internship in the group process department at St. Louis State Hospital. My internship with the group process department taught me how to design and conduct group training seminars and gave me experience running training seminars in Missouri and Illinois. I also was trained to conduct Psychodrama group therapy. My training in Psychodrama led to an experimental group that I conducted with hospitalized regressed mentally ill patients. The experimental group revealed that the supposedly mute backward patients had more abilities than staff knew about. My report formed the basis of a hospital Improvrmrnt Grant that significantly improved the life for many patients.
While still an intern at St. Louis State Hospital I was introduced to transactional analysis, one of the many theories of counseling that developed during the sixties and seventies. I spent three years commuting to Chicago to be trained in transactional analysis and to undergo my own analysis. Transactional analysis keeps the deep understanding of personality found in Freud's Psychoanalysis and Jung's Analytic Psychology while combining it with the practical aspects of behavior modification and rational emotive therapy. As a bonus, transactional analysis uses non technical language which helps clients develop new understanding quickly.