My Retirement Speech from the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center

I first want to thank and recognize my most personal supporters and encouragers, my family, for being here this afternoon and caring for me through the years. I next want to recognize my therapist brother who started out as a pastoral counselor. I am further happy to have here today two groups of our life long friends.

Others who have been great supporters through the years are here as well:

My psychiatrist friend and colleague who also studied psychoanalysis.

And my long time friend and colleague who gas traveled a similar path to mine. He began in pastoral ministry. Moved to pastoral counseling, then psychoanalysis, and finally neuropsychoanalysis.

I thank you all for being here today to celebrate with me and for our long and continued history together!

The next groups I wish to recognize and thank for being here are first: My fellow therapists at the pastoral counseling center. I have known some of you for almost twenty years. Second: The Interns and Residents I supervised over the years. You taught me as I taught you. Third: The Boards of Directors over the years. We could have not accomplished the mission of the pastoral counseling center without your oversight and fundraising. Fourth: Office staff and volunteers. You worked behind the scenes to keep the Counseling Center functioning smoothly from within as well as reaching out to the community........

As I thought about what I might say today, two questions came to my mind. The first one was, " Why did I come to the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center?" That one was pretty easy to answer. I needed a job! Which was true, but more seriously, I had just graduated from a Pastoral Counseling Institute which including training to become a LPC. And, at the age of 40 I was wanting to transition out of the pastorate and into the specialty of pastoral psychotherapy. My long time friend who was then the executive director here at Valley Pastoral, was kind enough to create a position for me as a staff psychotherapist. I was very grateful to be here!

The second question I asked myself was, "Why did I stay at Valley Pastoral until retirement?" ( Note that I retired from Valley Pastoral but subsequently began a small private practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy). That question was a little harder to answer. One reason I stayed so long was the work itself. Thanks to our expanded mission statement, staff therapists could do not only therapy, but also supervision, education and consultation. So , I got to do here much of what I loved doing! I got to do psychoanalytic psychotherapy--1100 patients for whom I am most grateful. I got to do supervision--14 students who taught me almost as much as I taught them. I got to write--two books, 100 Blog posts, The History of the Pastoral Counsrling Center, and many newsletter articles. I further got to give numerous talks/lectures in the community. I got to lead the counseling center through 12 years as the executive director and a number of years as clinical director and training director.I got to continue my education through the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Neuropsychoanalytic Society. And I also got to travel-- one trip being to the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, Austria.

And, through all of these various roles, I was fortunate to help many different people in many different ways. So I now had to ask," Why would I have NOT stayed here until retirement?"

But I stayed for another reason as well. And that was because of you all here today-- the Valley Pastoral community-- the historical community of the Valley Pastoral Counseling Center. You have been my community throughout all these years. You as therapists, residents, interns, supervisees, Board Members, office staff, and volunteers. It is our relationships that kept me here. Our relationships we forged as we worked side by side fulfilling the mission of the Center. I have valued our relationships, both past and present. And it those relationships with you in this room that I will take with me into this next chapter!!