NEC 2024 Interview with Emily Dowdell

0:09Hi. I'm doctor Emily Dowdell. I'm a clinical psychologist, and I work at Rua Woods Institute. I graduated from Divine Mercy's doctoral program in 2019, and I wanna share my story with you. So it started a while ago when I've always had this mission, really interested in helping people learn and know that they're loved, and what it means to be loved. And it started at Franciscan University. I was really blessed to be able to go there. I was able to study, multimedia communications while also getting some, classes in theology and philosophy. I actually minored in theology. But while I was there, I really I received this message, right, about the human dignity of the person and felt really called to do something with that.

0:49I wanted people to know what it means to be loved and how to love. So from there, I decided since I loved art and photography that it would be really fun to support the sacrament of marriage and become a wedding photographer. So I started my own photography business after graduating, and I also worked a bunch of random odd jobs, just to kinda, you know, make ends meet. And it was really great. I love being able to celebrate with people at the height of their their lives, you know, in this most beautiful sacrament of marriage, the best day of their lives. And, I found myself after five years of doing that wanting something a little bit more. I found myself wanting to bring the light of joy and truth of the dignity of the person and love, you know, from there to the darker places of ex human experience.

1:32And I didn't quite know how to do that. I didn't know what to do. You know, I had experience with philosophy, theology. Faith has always really been important to me, and I just felt called to do something more and to help bring healing to people and, again, this mission of, like, wanting people to know, that they're loved. And then I found Divine Mercy University. It was Institute for Psychological Sciences at the time, and I found their website. And no joke, on the front page, it said no background in psychology required, which was really convenient for me since I've never taken a psychology class in my life. So I I totally was, like, enamored by the program because it combines psychology, with theology and philosophy.

2:10And I was just so struck by my philosophy classes at Franciscan and the theology that I had learned about the dignity of the human person, and it was so exciting to see, you know, that I could study psychology, you know, which is a way of of helping people, how they think about themselves, others in the world, through that lens, right, of of the Catholic anthropology. So I I decided to apply, and, a bunch of doors opened from there. The Institute for Psychological Sciences was an incredible experience. I had fantastic professors. The integration of the faith, and reason with the science of psychology was really tremendous. After graduating from IPS, now DMU, I had the experience of working at the Catholic Psych Institute for a few years, and now I'm settled at Real Woods Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is a theology of the body ministry.

2:58They have an education curriculum and a psych services department. And, so I get to work in psych services and help people. We basically work on removing the barriers, that people have in their lives that that get in the way of their vocation to love. And, all of the things that have been passionate for me just kinda came together in this vocation, and I'm just really excited about it. So So I wanted to share my story with you because DMU is an awesome program. It's the only one I know of, I think the only one in The United States anyway, that combines the theology and the philosophy with the psychology. And that's such an important foundation. So thanks for listening, and I hope this inspires you to consider if you're pursuing a a degree in counseling or psychology to take a look at Divine Mercy University.

3:50Thanks.