PSYCHOTHERAPISTS SPECIALTY GROUP

 

Benjamin Keyes, Chair - bkeyes@regent.edu

Welcome to the webpage for the Psychotherapists Specialty Group. As many of you will see, we have taken down old material and hopefully are providing new information and a refocus. I would like to invite all of you to periodically send me pieces that you would like to include on the website. These items can include case vignettes, best practices, theories and techniques, spiritual growth and development pieces, poems, or anything else you feel to be pertinent for our group. I truly hope all of you are in wonderful health and that the Lord is blessing this year as we move forward. I would like to start this New Year with a prayer and offer it for your consideration, meditation, and or feedback:

Lord,

My emptied heart is yours

Your living river runs

Pure and sure

Straight through it.

It washes all my pain away

And cleanses every wound.

I see you

In the gold of its reflections

Before the dark appears.

I hear you

In the magic of its music

In the song the rapids give.

I feel you

In the soft moss atop its rocks

That gathers up in the morning dew

And holds each raindrop new.

Yet so much eludes and haunts me;

So much I long to know

Lies hidden deep beneath

Your living river’s flow.

In time I’ll find the answers;

I know they are there.

I’ll find them alone with you Lord,

Quietly in prayer.

 

"Betty W. Skinner"

 

New Chair Position – As many of you know, Dr. Charles Zeiders rotated off as Chair of the Psychotherapists Specialty Group. I was 'recruited' to succeed Charles and I greatly appreciate all the prayers, laying of hands, and positive wishes for my upcoming tenure. My journey to the Association of Christian Therapists took a number of interesting turns that I would like to share with you.

Many of you know that I am Messianic, that is a Jewish Believer in Jesus Christ the Messiah. I had a conversion experience at age seventeen, which I musingly refer to as 'the time that I started to wrestle with God'. I think that many times people assume that once someone dedicates their life to the Lord things are supposed to be wonderful and positive all the time. I don’t know about you, but that certainly was not my experience. Along my journey, God has certainly brought a number of lessons into my life. I realize this is a bit cryptic, but for those of you that can read between the lines, I’m guessing your life has had a few ups and downs as well. Around the time that the ACT was forming, one of its initial members was Dr. John Draeger, a psychiatrist from the Clearwater FL area. John and I became good friends and I greatly appreciated his wisdom and insight, as I, a new therapist, was beginning to practice. It was just a few years after the organization formed that I actually joined. For 20-plus years I remained a member, but did not attend any activities, or conferences, nor did I participate in any dialogue with members. In the last four years I have broken that mold and have been saddened by the awareness of what I have missed. I have truly found a group of colleagues and friends who share a deep desire and focus of bringing God’s presence into their work and allowing the Holy Spirit to direct them in their healing practices. I have found in our organization, a balanced and sane approach to the use of the 'gifts of the Spirit' without the chaos and disorganization found in many churches. My hope is that you have had similar discoveries regarding this within our group. I always come away from conferences, and sometimes even committee meetings, with a renewed sense of purpose, a rededication and focus to what God would have me do both in my life and in my professional career.

We are called to care for souls and to allow the Spirit to heal the broken, or as David Seamands would say "the infirmities" of our client’s lives. We have been given a great honor as psychotherapists to journey and travel to the deepest places, often hurt and broken places, of our clients’ lives. Our responsibility is to assist in the repair, and the growth, and to be God’s conduit for healing allowing His Holy Spirit to do the work. I don’t know about you, but I find that takes a lot of the responsibility off me, and over the years I have certainly learned to trust God and how He works. A personal friend of mine in the throes of therapy wrote the following poem, which I believe illustrates the depth to which we are invited:

Some Questions for Moishe

When you found yourself exiled

From Pharos’s court,

Banished to the ass end

Of the wilderness,

Prince come sheep herder,

Did you ever question God?

For 40 grueling years in hot desert

Did you berate yourself for your

Grandiosity, your impulsivity?

Did you curse your days in Egyptian

And your nights in Hebrew?

Did you crave another chance,

One more opportunity,

With every breath you drew?

Did you believe for decades

On end that you were finished

                            A failure

              A scab on the face

                            Of humanity

That you would die with the sound

Of bleating sheep in your ears?

When the cold desert night descended,

Did you ever wonder if the fire

In your heart would burn with

Consuming flame again?

I wondered that to.

When you turned aside to investigate

The bush that burned without

Being burned up,

Had your mind become numb from

Daily tedium?

Were you shocked when the Almighty

Called you by name

Believing He had forgotten you

As you were unable to forget?

When He finally revealed the

Mission of all missions

Did you cringe

              Snicker

                            Or gasp?

After the people failed to take the prize

And were confined to wander

For your last 40 years, did it

Feel like an icy hand on your throats

Or a punch to your gut?

The wilderness!

Two thirds of your life – 80 years-

Were spent in that forlorn place.

And to die there

Without even having made it out,

Did you ever wonder?

I do.

 

-S. Bruner.

 

              My goal for sharing this with you is to invite your critique, and or comments, and to further encourage you to send and add pieces so that I’m not the only one that’s putting up information here on the website! If I can be of any support to any of you, please do not hesitate to be in touch with me, questions regarding practice, ethics, case material, spiritual focus, etc., are all areas open to discussion and dialogue. The one thing that I can promise, is that which I do not know, or have a resource for, I will certainly be willing to find the information needed and pass it on to you. I can be reached at any of the numbers, address, or e-mail listed below, so please do not hesitate. I truly look forward to the New Year with great anticipation in working with all of you in this Specialty group, and welcome your comments along the way. I would like to close very simply with a prayer that is posted in the Association of Christian Therapists Newsletter for the Nurses Specialty group. Joe and Mary Joe Duddie placed this prayer in one of their Newsletters, but I think it carries a needed message to our group as well:

 

As I care

As I care for my patients today,

Be there with me, O Lord, I pray

Make my words kind

--it means so much—

And in my hands place Your healing touch

Let your love shine through all that I do,

So those in need may hear and feel you.

-         Unknown Author

 

Blessing in Christ,

 

Ben

 

Benjamin B. Keyes, Ph.D., Ed.D.

Professor/Program Director Masters in Counseling

School of Psychology and Counseling

Regent University

1000 Regent University Drive

Virginia Beach, VA 23464

e-mail: bkeyes@regent.edu

Phone:  757-352-4284

Fax:      757-352-4282

Cell:      727-460-7999