About Dr. Brownell
Philip Brownell, MDiv, PsyD
I am a clinical psychologist with over fifty years experience working with people. I have practiced and taught psychotherapy, supervised students, written articles in professional journals and books, and done so internationally. Please read more to see if you think I might be able to help you.
A few things we’re great at
While I’ve been around and made mistakes, like anyone, there are some things I do well. Here are three of them.
Psychotherapy
I am a trained Gestalt therapist, and I assimilate aspects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Processing, Narrative therapy, Object Relations, Emotion Focused Therapy, and more into my work.
Professional Coaching
I am a certified professional coach, having graduated from an accredited training program through the school of business at Duquesne University.
Spiritual Formation
I have a Master of Divinity from Western Seminary, and I spent thirteen years in full time ministry. My specialties are the integration of Christian spirituality and psychotherapy, spiritual formation, and the healing from spiritual abuse.
Why Choose The Brownell Center
There are many good therapists. A good therapist is an experienced therapist, and you have choices. So, why choose us?
My Experience
I have worked with people in various capacities since 1967 as line staff in residential treatment of children and adolescents, as an ordained clergyman, as a mental health therapist with severe and persistent psychological disorders, as a professional coach, and as a clinical psychologist in outpatient therapy working with individuals, couples, and even organizational systems.
My Approach
I apply Gestalt therapy theory to the practice of psychotherapy, with assimilations from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy, and Post-Secular Psychotherapy. I also make specific adaptations to Gestalt from the insights of Mindfulness, Behavioral Experiment, Extended Cognition, and Therapeutic presence.
My Values
I think life is to be lived; I’m an existentialist, but I am a theocentric existentialist. Although in my past I identified as a Protestant and evangelical Christian and pastor, I believe God is larger than such categories. I embrace that larger sense of life as one in which we live, more, and have our being in God, and I am interested in how people choose to live the one life we are all given. I respect each person’s choices and decisions as they step here and there along their way.
I am currently not taking new patients. However, I anticipate expanding space
after the first of the year.
Let us know if you would like to be on a wait list
Contact us
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CONTEMPLATION
The Online Journal of the Brownell Center for Psychotherapy and Growth
Psychotherapy or Counseling?
Psychotherapy explores chronic, deep-seated emotional and mental health issues, often stemming from past experiences. It is more concerned with identifying the “how and why” behind a challenge to effect a lasting personality or behavioral change. Counseling focuses on resolving specific, immediate issues or life challenges, such as stress management, career problems, or divorce. It is generally more immediate and task oriented. Those who practice psychotherapy often find themselves engaged in counseling as well because that is the kind of thing that often brings a person to seek help (only to discover later that it is related to something more). Counseling lends itself to a solutions-focused approach that is similar to coaching because both identify a positive future and attempt to find a way to get there. The problem facing many people, however, is that they have already attempted that only to find themselves doing the same thing over and over, matching themselves with the same kinds of people, getting into similar kinds of conflicts, dumping their mood into a familiar pit over the same kinds of issues and worrying about the same kinds of outcomes. That pattern suggests a way of life learned at an early age, and that kind of thing requires psychotherapy.
Psychotherapy and counseling can both use well established and proven approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, Third Wave and Mindfulness Cognitive Processing, Relational Systems Psychoanalysis, and Contemporary Gestalt Therapy. At The Brownell Center we are committed to a relational approach that is sensitive to the unique pacing that is needed for each person. We are not interested in check-box mental health. We are interested in helping people release the knots in their lives that have formed over years of pulling as hard as they can at both ends of a situation.