McMaster Divinity College is pleased to welcome Rick Carrol to the faculty in Counselling and Spiritual Care.
Rick joins MDC as an Assistant Professor of Counselling and Spiritual Care, bringing together more than two decades of pastoral ministry, clinical practice, and community-based care. He has served in pastoral ministry for 25 years, including 21 years at Portico Community Church in Mississauga, where he has held a variety of leadership roles, including Senior Pastor. He also founded the Portico Care Centre, an initiative providing integrated psychological, physical, and spiritual care at no cost to community members who lack health benefits or insurance coverage.
Rick has practiced psychotherapy since 2012 and continues to provide clinical care through the Portico Care Centre, with a particular focus on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT). He is also a member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO).
In this video, Rick introduces himself and shares more about his work in pastoral ministry and psychotherapy, his passion for accessible community care, and what he looks forward to bringing to students at MDC.
Video Transcript
Introduction
Well, hey everyone. My name is Rick Carroll and I’m an affiliate faculty in the Counselling and Spiritual Care program, just starting this fall.
Monday to Friday and Sundays, I’m actually a pastor in Mississauga at Portico Church. And out of Portico, we lead a care centre which provides counselling and physiotherapy and social work care free to everyone in our community who doesn’t have benefits or has maxed out their benefits.
Caring for people is really critical to who I believe we’re called to be as a church and who we should be as Christians, so, I’m excited to be here and working with our Counselling and Spiritual Care program because I feel it’s a great way to learn how to integrate both our faith and our practice as psychotherapists.
Psychotherapy and Teaching at MDC
I’ve been a psychotherapist since 2012 and still practice through our care centre and have a few clients on the side.
Here this fall, I will be teaching our Current Psychotherapies course, and we’re going to be looking into the foundations of all of the historical ways that we provide psychotherapy.
So, we’re looking at Freud. We’re going to be looking at Beck and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. And we get to have group discussions about all the foundations about how modern psychotherapies are utilized.
So, I’m really looking forward to getting to know you and hope to see you around the campus as well as in class this fall.
