Faculty Bios

Merrill Reese
Instructor (2007)

Specialty Areas

Compassion Fatigue
Grief and Loss
Group Counseling
Marital and Family Therapy
Role of Spirituality in Counseling

“Teaching means the creation of space in which the validity of the questions does not depend on the availability of answers but on their capacity to open us to new perspectives and horizons” (Henri Nouwen).

I received my BS in Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2004 I completed my MA in Community Counseling at Regent. Presently I am a doctoral candidate in the Ph. D. program in Counselor Education and Supervision at Regent University. Regent University has provided for me many different educational and professional opportunities: enhancement of clinical skills as a counselor, graduate education, development of academic instructional skills and opportunities to teach both here and abroad. My educational and teaching experience at Regent has opened me to many new perspectives and horizons as well.

Counseling is much like education in that both the counselee and the student need a place of safety in which they are free to explore the deeper questions of life. The exploration of that which is deep will often create a space between the participants. As painful as that space can be, it is often that pain that is the motivating factor that drives one towards the change or the answers to the questions that they seek. The creation of a sacred space for the participant to do their work thus becomes the task of the counselor and or educator. As a counselor/educator, it is my sincere desire to help create a sacred space for the exploration of the deeper issues and questions of life. As a fellow seeker I join with those who question and seek the answers to the ultimate questions and meanings of life.

In my limited spare time I enjoy photography, travel, short term mission trips and playing drums and other various assorted percussion instruments.