Sister Mary Patrice Ahearn, RSM, Psy.D.

Faculty: Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology

Sister Mary Patrice Ahearn, RSM, Psy.D.

Training Director of the IPS Center
Assistant Professor

Education

Psy.D., Institute for the Psychological Sciences
M.S., Institute for the Psychological Sciences
B.A., Magdalen College

Contact

mpahearn.ips@divinemercy.edu

Biography

Sister Mary Patrice Ahearn is a licensed clinical psychologist in the state of Michigan and the Commonwealth of Virginia and a Religious Sister of Mercy of Alma, Michigan.  Her clinical work has focused on service to the Church with the assessment of candidates to religious life and the seminary, and in working in therapy with priests, religious and seminarians. After completing her postdoctoral work, Sister worked at her community’s Sacred Heart Mercy Health Care Center in Alma, Michigan and then worked for about 2 years teaching Applied Psychology and Counseling at the University of Notre Dame in Sydney Australia. After her assignment in Australia, Sister became the Director of Counseling Services at the Pontifical North American College in Rome for 3 years. She returned to Divine Mercy University in 2021.

Sister’s professional interests include individual and group psychotherapy and her theoretical background utilizes psychodynamic, interpersonal and attachment theories. Sister is also interested in integrating a Catholic understanding of the human person with the best the science of psychology has to offer.  She ultimately sees psychotherapy as a relationship that, if attended to well, can lead to insight, self-knowledge and with the hope of gaining interior freedom from whatever is holding the person back from achieving his or her goals.