Еdward Tick

Edward Tick, Ph.D, is Director and Senior Psychotherapist at Sanctuary: A Center for Mentoring the Soul in Albany, NY. He is also co-director of The Sage Center on Violence and Healing, as well as adjunct professor in both Communications and Global Studies at the Sage Colleges, and Social Work Supervisor and Consultant for Veterans Affairs at Community Hospice, all in New York’s capital region. Ed is a shamanic and spiritual practitioner in several traditions. He trained under and was initiated into Native American shamanism and its clinical applications by William Taegel in the tradition of the Creek shaman Bearheart. A recognized expert practicing the ancient Greek Asklepian dream-healing tradition, he also studies and uses Vietnamese and Biblical spiritualist traditions. Honored for his groundbreaking work using spiritual practices to heal post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by combat veterans and war and violence survivor, Ed guides spiritual healing and growth journeys to Greece and Viet Nam and into the American wilderness, and lectures and leads retreats all over the US and in Greece.

Ed holds an MA in Psychology from Goddard College, a Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric from Renssealer Polytechnic Institute, and is ordained as an interfaith minister by the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person. Ed is author of Sacred Mountain: Encounters With The Vietnam Beast, and The Practice of Dream Healing: Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine. His next book, The Golden Tortoise: Viet Nam Journeys, will be published later this year.

Ed Tick, Ph.D., is, first and foremost, a transformational healer. He is also a mythologist, psychotherapist, poet and writer, educator, and overseas journey guide. He holds an M.A. in psychology from Goddard College and a Ph.D. in Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Tick is a clinical member and has held various officer positions with the American Academy of Psychotherapists and the American Holistic Medical Association, as well as many other professional organizations. He is also an ordained interfaith minister.

A practicing psychotherapist for more than 30 years, Tick specializes in extensive and innovative work with survivors of severe trauma and violence — particularly combat war veterans — sexual and substance abuse victims, those with severe mental and emotional disorders, men’s issues and deeply rooted psycho-spiritual healing. In all of his work, Tick applies his own innovative model of PTSD treatment based on worldwide research of spirituality, mythology and war/the warrior archetype, in order to develop a new, broadened and strengthened psycho-spiritual identity.

Tick is a nationally recognized expert on the psychological, spiritual, historical and cultural aspects of war, the Vietnam Era, and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. He began treating Vietnam veterans in psychotherapy in 1979 before PTSD was a diagnostic category. Since that time, he has treated veterans and survivors of WWII, the Holocaust, Korea, the Gulf War, Central American conflicts, Lebanon, the Balkan wars, the Irish civil and religious wars, the Greek Civil War, the Middle East conflicts, and the Iraq War, among others. He has also served as consultant to numerous community, church and veterans organizations on the treatment of veterans and the training of staff for such work.

His remarkable work had taken him on healing journeys, spiritual tours, lectures, educational classes and workshops around the globe, and even to the position of co-founder of the Sanctuary International Friendship Foundation, a non-profit agency that directs and raises funds for projects to help heal war-torn Viet Nam.

As an expert in both the classical Greek and Native American traditions, Tick’s last book is fittingly titled, The Practice of Dream Healing: Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine (Quest Books 2001). In addition to War and the Soul which Quest is releasing this November, Tick will be releasing a book of prose and poetry based on his healing journeys to Viet Nam titled, The Golden Tortoise: Viet Nam Journeys, which Red Hen Press will publish later this year. For more information on Tick and his remarkable work in transformative healing, visit his Web site at www.mentorthesoul.com.