Daily Inspiration: Meet Chris Gioielli

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Gioielli.

Hi Chris, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Becoming a psychologist was not a career on my mind in high school, college, or even as I started my first graduate degree. I initially pursued a career in pastoral ministry. It was not until I was graduating from seminary that I realized I was not supposed to be helping people as a spiritual director or pastor. Rather, it became clear that I had a gift for helping people one-on-one and an urge to help people beyond a life of faith or spirituality.

Part of this journey included my own healing from working with therapists and spiritual directors. I come from a religious tradition that can prioritize faith in a manner that can dismiss emotions or minimize psychological suffering. In fact, I recall hearing how psychology and religion were incompatible and that doctrine superseded any truths from psychology.

The unique part of my healing was that I discovered how addressing past relational and emotional wounds led to deep spiritual healing, and how emotional freedom can lead to a deeper faith. This changed how I believed I could help people, shifting my focus to considering the healing of a whole person, and not just a “part” of them through addressing faith or spirituality.

The impact of this realization was life-changing and something “clicked” inside of me. I became compelled to help others similar to the gifts I received from those who cared for me. This led me to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology from an institution where I could specialize in the intersection of psychology and spirituality.

So, after my first three years of graduate work in spiritual formation, I committed to another 5 years of a doctorate to complete all of the necessary coursework and supervised practice to gain my psychology degree. Along the way, I worked in community mental health, college/university counseling centers, and private practice.

After traveling from coast to coast working in these different contexts, I landed in Denver at a group practice to complete my postdoctoral residency and gain my hours toward licensure. I jumped through all of the necessary hoops to practice independently as a licensed psychologist, which allowed me the freedom to pursue my original vision for my vocation, a specialty to help those with painful or traumatic religious experiences.

I ventured into solo private practice, despite all of the risks that accompany the choice to be self-employed, and have found the right space to return to my initial move to clinical psychology and pair it with the right format to prioritize my family.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In addition to my roundabout way to becoming a psychologist, as I previously mentioned, I’ve also had a journey to get to finding myself in solo private practice. Initially, I worked in college counseling centers, which is very rewarding as I got to partner with students in a unique stage of life and with many diverse backgrounds.

I also enjoyed being a part of a group private practice where I was given the unique opportunity to build a training program for psychologists in training. However rewarding, I found that these work settings were difficult for me as I also wanted to prioritize both supporting and being with my family. I have small children and I love them dearly.

I quickly realized that if I stayed in a group practice or a university setting then I had to choose between providing for them financially or being around the way I wanted to. This motivated my scary jump into solo practice, a journey that has not been easy but has left me with no regrets. It is an incredible privilege to be able to now say that I can not only provide for my family and the future I hope for them, but also that I am not missing crucial years of their lives while at work.

While the journey to land in private practice has been challenging, it is minimal in comparison to the emotional, spiritual, personal, and relational toll that being a therapist entails. Despite having meaningful connections with people, the life of a therapist can be really lonely. My job is to keep secrets, to care for the innermost parts of others, and to offer myself and expect nothing in return.

Being a therapist for others creates real moments of connection with others, but they are not for me. I also can’t come home at the end of the day and “talk shop” with my family like others can. In some senses, there is a whole part of my life that others can’t know and this makes it difficult to be fully known in my work. It might be surprising for some and obvious to others, but I am affected by my patients.

I believe that when I care for another person, we interact in a manner that actually changes our perceptions of life. In fact, there are studies showing how therapists can experience vicarious trauma just for helping others. It is a liability to care for people who are hurting, but I believe it is a worthy investment.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a clinical psychologist, I have some freedom to be able to do a handful of things which makes my work fun since I can wear a few different hats. I have taught graduate students in psychology and in spirituality. I’ve enjoyed writing for journals and had the pleasure of supervising some wonderful graduate students in psychology. Mostly my time is spent offering psychotherapy and psychological assessments. I enjoy working with children and adolescents who are struggling to succeed in school for one reason or another.

We typically work through a psycho-education evaluation which helps get to the bottom of what is contributing to a student’s difficulties and then also allows for specific insights to offer helpful ways toward success, sort of like being a psycho-educational detective looking to solve the case. Similarly, I also provide comprehensive psychological assessments for adults who are interested in getting clarity on what is contributing to their ongoing emotional concerns or finally getting an answer for whether they have ADHD or not.

While I enjoy all of my work, I am most proud of my investment to hone my psychotherapy craft. In addition to my doctorate and graduate work in spirituality, I’ve completed an additional 3-year training in a very effective and challenging form of psychotherapy called Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, or ISTDP for short.

My therapy approach, heavily influenced by ISTDP, is a unique form of treatment that can be helpful to connect to buried emotions and experiences, rather than avoid them, and offer powerful experiences of relief, deeper intimacy with others, and internal peace. It has been an absolute pleasure to partner with my patients to help them achieve their treatment goals and face complex emotional and relational realities that have been difficult to navigate alone.

Like many therapists, I work with those suffering from trauma, depression, anxiety, grief/loss, and sexuality and gender concerns. However, a unique part of my psychotherapy practice is to help people who have experienced painful or traumatic religious experiences. Part of my own story includes my experience of healing from abusive religious leaders, something I wanted to offer to others.

My past experiences and education have given me a voice to help a community that has experienced a unique kind of pain connected to religious contexts, particularly for those within the LGBTQ+ community. I am proud to partner with clergy/pastors/ministers, missionaries, and seminary students, but also those who identify within the evangelical community or who no longer practice a form of faith due to the painful experiences they’ve encountered.

We all have different ways of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I see true success as inextricably linked to integrity. It is difficult to acknowledge what we truly want and just as difficult to fully pursue those desires. When we honestly examine our hearts for our goals and longings and then allow ourselves to fully commit to those desires, we embark on a task of integrity.

Will I go after an honest desire, a desire that sells me short, or a desire unrealistically high? Will I set a goal only to commit myself to its outcome partially? If I have achieved a dream but it isn’t honest or achieved a goal by half-hearting it, have I found true success? While partial success still serves a purpose, I believe that true success is the result of pursuing a goal with integrity and allowing oneself to accept the result. It can be hard to know if a goal is truly attainable sometimes.

However, I believe that if I have committed myself to an honest goal with the integrity to offer my full capacity to achieve it, I have succeeded in giving my true effort regardless of the outcome. Success is not only about external results to me or about the full accomplishment of a target I pursue. Rather, I see that I can be successful in honestly committing myself to my desire, which warrants an honest result.

Many overlook how difficult it can be to be internally honest and commit oneself to a true desire. I work with patients daily who abandon themselves, give up on their desires, and accept partiality instead of their fullness. In this way, success can be internal, in that being true to oneself is a goal worth attaining. Furthermore, I believe my external achievements can be undermined by an inability to accept success.

This is something that I have seen with my patients and in myself. If I achieve my goals only to have them minimized by critical thoughts in my mind or dismissed by comparing myself to others, I have not truly succeeded. There have been many times when I’ve had success in my hands only for it to slip through my grasp by invalidating internal forces. In fact, this is self-defeat even amid external success.

When I deprive myself of the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of my labor, I undermine success and only achieve it partially. Many patients that I work with have also learned to do this, by dismissing or devaluing that they have done healthy or productive things for themselves in therapy and holding themselves back from the fullness of their success in treatment.

This is why success is not just about having integrity to pursue sober-minded goals, it is also about allowing oneself the gift to feel a healthy sense of pride or accomplishment for having done so. When I can be generous to myself by having the integrity to pursue my true desires and allowing myself to enjoy what I’ve worked so hard for, there I find success.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.drchrisgioielli.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-gioielli-psyd-6b3a6622b/
• Other: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/chris-gioielli-louisville-co/783623

Image Credits
Lauren Cordova