“We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance.” 

^{Romans 5:3, RSV}

As a counselor, I struggled to integrate today’s profession of mental health counseling with the teaching tradition of the Orthodox Church. At times they seemed compatible; at others, mutually exclusive. How might they fit together? The situation was clarified once I realized that “integration” was the wrong way to view it, as though each realm was equal and enough cleverness could put them together like pieces of a puzzle.

Rather, the ages of illumined experience in the Church must speak first. And why not? Over 100 years of humanist wisdom has spoken in the West and shaped today’s mental health. It is time the experience of healing the human soul (psyche) within the over-two millenia of Eastern Orthodox tradition become the lens through which we view psychology and psychotherapy.

I operate from this first principle and endeavor to blaze a trail in researching and communicating Orthodox psychology and psychotherapy as applied to our modern illnesses of the mind and soul.

Justin is a licensed associate counselor (LAC) in Arizona. He is a veteran of the USMC and Navy, a Subdeacon in the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America and an Archdiocesan Seminarian, and a family man. He has years of experience and advanced training in counseling, and marriage and family therapy. Justin taught family counseling at a local Arizona university. His current professional role is a Program Coordinator at one of Arizona’s largest behavioral health agencies, and he is a member of several professional organizations.

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