Associate Professor of Professional Counseling, Graduate Counseling Practicum/Internship Coordinator
Dr. Meyer began in 2018 as an Associate Professor of Professional Counseling in the Graduate School of Theology and Ministry at ORU. Additionally, he currently serves in the role of coordinating the graduate counseling student's practicum and internship experiences. Dr. Meyer was drawn to ORU because of the congruence between his calling as a counselor educator—to prepare ethical counselors attentive to the Holy Spirit—and the University’s mission, “to build Holy Spirit-empowered leaders through whole person education to impact the world with God’s healing.
Dr. Meyer loves witnessing the process of growth and awareness that takes place within the counseling student as they progress through the counseling program. He loves creating a safe environment for students to wrestle with new constructs and complex universal human factors; and he loves witnessing the deepening of awareness and understanding counseling students experience in that environment.
For Dr. Meyer, it is fundamentally important for counseling-students to have a well-developed, deep self-awareness so that they can best work with all of their clients. In turn, he believes it is his responsibility, as a professor, to facilitate complex and critical thinking, as well as authentic self-reflection for each unique and complex counseling student he has the privilege of teaching. He explains how each student brings unique experiences, epistemologies, worldviews, and existential perspectives, and his goal is to assist future counselors in becoming aware of how these dynamics impact, form and influence the way in which they work with people. Dr. Meyer works to assist each student to develop or grow her or his epistemological views, spiritual awareness, as well as grow personally and professionally in authenticity. In order to do so, Dr. Meyer explains how he must continuously engage in his own authentic reflection and development, as students recognize genuine modeling of their professors.
Academically, Dr. Meyer’s research interests and experience center around spirituality, spiritual development, existentialism and self-awareness in the counseling milieu; specifically, within the lives of counselors, supervisors, and counselors-in-training. He writes and presents on topics including reflective practices and training, the development of counseling supervisors, the relationship between spirituality and humanism, and the connection between spiritual awareness and wellness. Dr. Meyer enjoys exploring the existential motives behind counselor's ambitions to become engaged in the spiritual work of counseling. Professionally, he has worked in Kansas, Nebraska, and Georgia, in various community mental health clinics, hospitals and group homes prior to earning his master’s degree. He counseled in a private practice in New Mexico, prior to relocating to Auburn, Alabama where he completed his doctorate. He currently has a private practice in Bixby, Oklahoma. Dr. Meyer attended The University of Kansas (B.G.S: Psychology) for his undergraduate studies; Richmont Graduate University (M.A.: Professional Counseling), in Atlanta, Georgia, for his master's studies; and Auburn University (Ph.D.: Counselor Education and Supervision) for his doctoral studies. He was married to his wife, Emilie Meyer, in 2005, and has two energetic children, Branch (b.2013) and Ruthie (b.2015).