Father Bede Healey, Prior, Monk, and Clinical Psychologist

Father Bede, the Prior of Incarnation Monastery, is both a monk and a practicing clinical psychologist. In addition to spiritual direction, Bede provides fee-based psychotherapy and consultation.

Bede is also a licensed clinical psychologist and offers psychological consultation and treatment.  Bede earned his doctorate in 1990 at the Gordon F Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University in New York. He trained and worked at the Menninger Clinic, where he was a Staff Psychologist, the Director of the Division of Religion and Psychiatry, and held the Ishak Ramsey Professorship at the Karl Menninger School of Mental Health Sciences.

In these capacities, he has written and presented widely on psychological and spiritual issues, including sexuality, trauma, ministerial self-care, and promoting psycho-spiritual growth throughout the lifespan.  He has consulted with and provided treatment for religious professionals and focuses on working with religious issues in therapy.  He has provided psychological assessments for religious and ministerial candidates and consulted with religious communities and dioceses of various denominations.

He has a keen interest in the relationship between spirituality and psychology, especially psychoanalytic relational theory, as well as in exploring the contemplative dimension in everyday life.

Father Bede offers this statement of how he works in spiritual direction and psychotherapy:

“One of my interests focuses on the integration of the ideas of the psychoanalytic relational theory with spirituality over the lifespan. I take an experiential, experience-near approach, stressing applicability to our daily lives and our future growth. Besides utilizing this approach in my individual work, this approach can be useful in educating those wanting to engage in the practice of spiritual direction / accompaniment, as well as in understanding how these processes play out in parish or other pastoral settings, and in efforts to further personal growth.”

As an ongoing member for many years of a colloquium exploring generative monastic communities, Bede joins a group of similar scholar-practitioner monastics yearly to explore this area, bringing his unique relational psychoanalytic perspective. Occasional publications are offered.

 

Bede can be contacted directly at 831-238-4901 or BedeJHealey@gmail.com *PLEASE NOTE, Fr Bede has no current openings as of March, 2022