Three years ago, as I completed a graduate degree in Professional Counseling, making a career change, I first explored St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute's psychotherapy training offerings. I have since been a donor and member of this extraordinary learning community, in which my intellect and deeper capacities to serve others have been engaged and enriched. In Institute training programs and other community offerings, in countless encounters with genuine and respectful faculty and staff, I have been helped to see new possibilities for my professional life. Likewise, in personal therapy with a dedicated and skillful Institute clinician, I am experiencing not only a career change, I am enjoying the change of my life.
Two years ago, I volunteered to serve on the Board of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute without knowing much about it. I have since been amazed by the brilliant and dedicated professionals behind this wonderful organization that does so much for the St. Louis community. The Institute not only provides much needed mental health care to individuals and families, it educates and trains the analysts, counselors and social workers that staff the many public and charitable organizations that are serving the less fortunate in our city -- the children, the homeless, and those facing abuse or mental or emotional turmoil. The work done at the Institute and the collective impact it has had throughout the region has made me proud to know that such a dynamic group has found a home in St. Louis.