Title: When hope hurts: On the therapoetics of dys-abling pain

Todd DuBose, Ph.D

Biography

Todd DuBose, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Full Professor at The Chicago School’s College of  Professional Psychology.  He is also a licensed clinical psychologist in Chicago and has over thirty-five years of clinical experience as a former chaplain, teacher, clinician, supervisor and consultant.  He holds degrees in contemporary continental and comparative philosophy of religion (B.A., Georgia State University; M.Div., Union Theological Seminary, NYC) and in human science clinical psychology (Ph.D., Duquesne University).  He integrates these traditions in a clinical specialization of caring for others called “therapoetics”, which is differentiated from deficit corrective and psychoeducational practices of care, and has a particular focus on the impossible, or “no way out” situations, the taboo, and extreme experiences and events. His research and scholarship also critiques ideologies and practices of care in their taken-for-grantedness as standards of care across disciplines that may harm in how they help. He is the winner of numerous awards for his work and is known globally for his presentations on existential-hermeneutical-phenomenological approaches to therapeutic care.  Along with being on the board of directors for The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry, he is an advisor for therapeutics and educational curricula with The Evolved Network (www.theevolvednetwork.org) here in Chicago, a farm to table culinary therapeutic program for youth at risk for food insecurity and gang violence.  Most of all, however, he prefers to be known simply as a companioning human being.