NEC 2024 Interview with MSC Alumnus Grant Freeman

0:09Good morning. I have the pleasure to introduce to you all Grant Freeman, a graduate of our master's in counseling. And I'm Michele Drennen, the alumni relations manager. We're gonna get to know Grant's journey a little bit this morning. So, Grant, the first question I have to ask you, tell me what you're doing with your degree and maybe some ideas on how you feel like you're changing the world. It's a great great question. Thank you. So what I'm doing now is I'm, I'm seeing clients that are, Catholic, through the Pastoral Solution Institute, doctor Greg Popczyk. So, through his group, I'm able to utilize, my skills as a counselor through the training from Divine Mercy University and, and all offer it to clients that are seeking out that spiritual integration.

0:59Wow. That's primarily, what I do. I also have an opportunity to to see some private clients that are in my area, and I also am able to work with, business professionals that are seeking a, a performance coaching, to integrate their life and their work and their family and their spirituality. It really blends everything together in a nice way so that individuals that might seek mental health counseling because they're they're in a hole, right, and they're trying to find that equilibrium, there are also those individuals out there that want more. They, they have things that are, working for them, but they wanna capitalize on what they have. And they want to, you know, squeeze the life out of it, you know, just really drink deep on what they're doing in their careers and in their family and in their faith.

1:59And sometimes it's hard to integrate them. And so the work that I'm able to do from the Catholic mental health perspective is really to shape that journey upward. Wow. It's a really great thing to do. Concept. I heard you mentioning when you're talking to father Charles, the CCMMP. How do you feel like studying the way you did at Divine Mercy? Are there some examples that you feel like you really made a major change in the world? Obviously, no names, but just your Yeah. Well, I think that perhaps, one thing that is, is shocking that is, is that we are primarily good and that we suffer the challenges of life. Right? Rather than we are inadequate and we have to become adequate. God loves us. He sees us through his lens of love, and he sees what we're going through, what we're struggling with, but he sees us redeemed from all of that.

3:01And he comes to join us in this journey of getting through the muck. And I think that that fundamental, made in the image and likeness of god that we are good, that we have the virtues planted in us, and it's difficult to kind of, weed the garden to allow those virtues to flourish, I think that that's a a an element that people are reminded of when they come into the counseling session. They have forgotten it, and they need that reminder that they are primarily good and beloved. And that there's not something wrong with them, but they're going through something that's very difficult. Fulfilling what you're doing. Oh, without a doubt. So what attracted you to divine mercy in our state in the beginning?

3:56Well, in the beginning, the fact that I could do it online, because I was working as the director of evangelization at Purdue University, and I was serving a lot of students at the time. And I didn't wanna leave them, but I wanted to acquire the clinical skills. And so, I would work by day and study by night. God bless my wife for handling that for three years. But what really attracted me was the the ease of getting into classes, being able to do it online. The second thing is that I'd be able to study in an atmosphere that was Catholic. I wouldn't have to, defend myself against the secular side of the counseling world, which is, quite toxic, actually. And I didn't wanna have to fight my way through because the science is so good.

4:55It's helpful for, those that wanna help people, obviously. But I didn't wanna have to put my shield up and fight away the agendas and the ideologies and slog my way through the difficulties of, well, the toxic, university environment. And so DMU was a a refuge for me that I could go in there, and the idea of, John Paul the second's, Catholic anthropology would be there. The Thomistic and, philosophical truths would be reverenced there. And, I think that that it was, it was free from the tumult. That's what I really thought about. Also, they let me in. Yeah. It was divine mercy. There were it was a divine mercy. So, doctor Payne, he he let me in. I was, a I had been out of school for a long time.

5:55I've been working for about a decade. And when I applied, he's like, I don't know about this guy, but he let me in and god bless him for it. Great answers. Great great great management of that whole belief. Thank you. So you've talked about this in some respects, but what type of bridges do you think can be built between science and religion and health care and pastoral care? You seem to love to weave all those things together. Yeah. Can you share your feelings about that? My feelings I mean, well, I think it's gonna I mean, it's terrifying to try and do that because there's such a a challenge to it, but my thoughts on it are, what else is gonna work? If we don't have the rapport between, faith and science, then okay.

6:46So we can take care of people. We know what we can do, but do we know who we're taking care of? And so, medical professionals, clinicians, anyone who's working to help people flourish, if they don't know who they're taking care of, someone who's made in the image and likeness of God, someone who's fallen and redeemed, someone who has potential and has a gift to offer the world. If we don't know that about the person, then we might just be treating it like, well, we're fixing a machine or we're fixing, you know, some, useful element in society, but it's a person. And so the connection between, psychology and theology and health care is really it it's an addition of, what we're trying to get people to do, but also who it is we're taking care of.

7:46And if the clinicians, doctors don't have a good idea of who they're taking care of, that they have an eternal value, then it's a shortsighted vision of what we're doing. Cool. It's a great, great critique and certainly doing a lot of great things out in the world. We appreciate your gift of time this morning and sharing your journey with DMU so much, Graham. You're very, very welcome, Michelle. Uh-huh. Thanks for having me. You bet. Bet.