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�We need ethical therapists, and this is why I have come to talk to you today,� Marietta Grumbine (�14) told a group of 91����� Aquinas College, California, students last week at a talk about psychology and counseling, sponsored by the Office of Career Services. �I have been where you are, and I know the formation that you have had. We need you.�

Marietta Grumbine (�14)In the last year of a three-year Marriage and Family Therapy master�s program at Fuller Theological Seminary, Miss Grumbine is a counseling intern at the Phoenix Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter and addiction-recovery center where, she reports, she is blessed to perform daily three Spiritual Works of Mercy � �counseling the doubtful, comforting the afflicted or the sorrowful, and instructing the ignorant.�

The work of a therapist, however, �is not pretty, it�s not glamorous, and it�s heartbreaking sometimes,� Miss Grumbine cautioned. �Being a therapist is looking at all those things no one wants to look at � trauma, abuse, neglect, addiction � no one wants to look at those things. No one wants to look down and help. But we were told to do that. We were told to wash one another�s feet. We were told to look at the ugly things and serve. Being a therapist is that. It�s being a foot-washer.�

But it�s not for everyone. �Being a therapist is a calling, and I really want to stress that,� she continued. �If you�re still sitting here, hearing this talk, and if you have heard everything that I have to say about what therapy is really like, and what being a therapist is really like, and you are still interested � then you might be called to it.�

In the course of her hour-long presentation, �Beyond the Couch: Counseling and Clinical Psychology,� Miss Grumbine answered students questions about graduate-school options, various kinds of therapeutic practice, and the ethical challenges that a Catholic therapist may encounter. �You need to know what you believe,� she said, �and how you�re going to act on it.�

Counseling, she continued, serves an essential human need. �Everyone needs mental-health care, because we are human beings, just as everyone needs to be taken care of physically sometimes,� she explained. Because clients are often vulnerable, and the information they disclose can expose them to exploitation and manipulation, therapists must possess the highest ethical standards.

�There is a lot of beautiful work that can be done in therapy,� Miss Grumbine said. �But in order to do that work, you need to be trustworthy with people�s lives in your hands. That�s why I�m talking to you, because I�m hoping that you are those people, and I want to convince you to go be therapists.�