K. Suzanne Hales, ED.D., LPC, LMFT
Education
1974 BS in Psychology
1986 MS in Counseling with emphasis in Marriage and Family
1998 Ed.D. in Counseling
Licenses and Certification
Licensed Professional Counselor
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Certified Imago Therapist
Certified Divorce Mediator
As a freshman in college I took my first psychology class and I immediately knew I loved learning about human behavior and why we do what we do. I was amazed to learn that 93% of our behavior is due to our unconscious and only 7% of what we do comes from our conscious mind. I was immediately intrigued and spent the next 30 years of my academic training pursuing more knowledge and experience with the unconscious.
As a young professional I spent 12 years teaching psychology and coaching young women. In 1976, my husband Randall and I moved to McKinney and I began the women’s athletic program McKinney ISD. I coached girls’ basketball and track. I immediately wanted to understand why girls performed like they do in the area of competitive sports. I discovered we perform based on how we see ourselves. These perceptions of ourselves are learned early in our lives, and for many of us, those first perceptions are inaccurate. We are each born with an inner beauty and competence, but early in our lives we begin to lose sight of who we really are. We develop a false self, one that hides our true self, but one which attempts to get us the love we seek and need. To me, therapy is a process or a way of rediscovering who we really are and once again finding that inner beauty that we lost along the way.
It was during my work with these young athletes that I began to develop a dream. I wanted to create a place where people could discover their authentic selves--a place where they could learn to see themselves accurately, as whole and precious human beings having needs. I wanted it to be a place where people could begin to identify their needs and find a way to get them met. This was the beginning of a deep yearning in my heart for a place of healing. I wanted it to be a safe place where pain could be heard and valued. I didn’t want it to be a place where one must perform well to be valued. Instead, I wanted it to be a place where imperfections could be honored and not be judged. In this place, I wanted to listen to people’s dreams, fears, and heartaches. In 1986 I opened the doors of Counseling and Consulting Associates of North Texas. Today, CCA is home for thirteen other therapists and one psychiatrist.
I view therapy as a process where my clients learn about their inner selves. I help each one identify how they lost him/herself—and more importantly, how that inner self can be recovered. For me, therapy is a spiritual process where I am blessed to enter into the process with another human being. I work with individuals, couples, and also groups. I also lead workshops and retreats in the local area and in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
As a therapist, I encourage you to search until your heart lets you know where you can be heard. The journey is holy. Our pain does not mean we are defective: it simply means we are trying to grow…to create a new consciousness. Just as nature is cyclical, so are our lives. Moments of birth, learning, sadness, fears, darkness, even death…which in time moves us back to the new life of springtime. One of my favorite sayings is a quote from Albert Camus, “In the midst of wintertime, there is in me, an invincible springtime.”
I have been married for 36 years and have survived the adolescence of two beautiful adult daughters.
Give me a candle of the Spirit, O God, as I go down into the deep of my own being. Show me the hidden things. Take me down to the Spring of my life, and tell me my nature and my name. Give me freedom to grow so that I may become my true self…the fulfillment of the seed which you planted in me at my making. Out of the deep I cry unto thee, O God…Amen
-George Appleton
