• INTERVIEW: Nathan Gehlert, M.S., LPC

Interview from the newsletter of the Pastoral Counseling and Consultations Centers of Washington, DC.

You could say that Nathan Gehlert's own "quarterlife crisis" led him down the path to career change. As a result, he's now helping others in their 20s and 30s discern what they want their own lives to look like in 10 years.

Gehlert joined PC&CC last year while working on his Ph.D. in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola College. He explains that his decision to leave a political science career several years ago really was part of a larger discernment process taking place in his 20s. "I know it's probably a cliché, but I got into political science because I was really interested in helping people on a macro level. I enjoyed my time doing that and learned a lot, but at the end of the day, I felt frustrated that I wasn't getting to help people in the ways that I really wanted to," he says.

During his discernment process, Gehlert noticed that he was playing "armchair psychologist" for many of his friends. He began also reading up on psychology and spirituality.

In a meditation that combined his political background with his growing interest in pastoral psychotherapy, Gehlert imagined peace talks between two diplomats. "I found myself thinking that there's a 50 percent chance that each of those people is going to have a broken marriage. That means that those people who have the responsibility of making relationships between people and nations and communities, half of them have trouble communicating with just one other person," he says, adding that this is what drew him to couples work. "Helping one person communicate effectively with just one other person, that might be the path to begin effecting change in our world and healing the world in a very large-scale way, but starting at a very small place."

As an Imago-trained therapist, Gehlert notes that he finds real joy in working with individuals and couples striving for better communication. "In doing this work I am really being who I am, and I can bring my whole self into the counseling room for my job. It feels great to get to be me in my profession," he says.

Gehlert's empathy for other twenty- and thirty-somethings struggling with quarterlife issues has driven him to co-lead a group on the topic with PC&CC's Cate Shea. "I am really interested in working with people in their 20s and 30s who are starting to experience those things that come as a part of the quarterlife - such as individuation from our parents, finding a meaningful career, establishing ourselves in intimate relationships," he explains. "A very important piece of that is helping people think about getting into a lifelong relationship."

Gehlert and Shea's "Quarterlife+10" group aims to help young adults assess where they are today and where they would like to be in 10 more years. Meanwhile, Gehlert is looking to completing his Ph.D. "I am really fascinated by theories," he explains. He is in the planning stages of his dissertation research and hopes to consider the Imago theory of relationships and the laws of attraction as part of his study.

You can learn more about my group for young adults here.