Dr. Gregory Popcak is the Founder/Executive Director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute, an organization dedicated to helping Catholics find faith-filled answers to life's difficult questions through counseling, books, audio productions, ratio and television.

He serves as Clinical Director for the Pastoral Soutions Institute's Behavioral Tele-Health Practice which has provided over 30,000 hours of pastoral tele-counseling to Catholic individuals and couples worldwide since 1999.

Dr. Popcak has written 8 bestselling books integrating Catholic teaching and counseling psychology and is a leader in effort to create a renaissance in Catholic-integrated clinical practice. His articles and columns appear regularly in periodicals such as Catholic Digest, Catholic Parent, Family Foundations, First Things, and others. Hs work has been featured in periodicals as diverse as The National Catholic Register, Ladies Home Journal, and The National Enquirer.

He has hosted two television series for EWTN and, with his wife, Lisa, currently hosts Heart, Mind and Strength, a syndicated radio program heard on Catholic radio stations across the US. He can also be heard in The Adventures of Family Man on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Catholic Channel.

Abstract

And There Was No One There to Comfort Me: A National Survey of Religiously Committed Catholic V. Protestant Perceptions of the Adequacy of Local Church and Community-Based Mental Health Services and Preferences in Counselor Competencies.

This study evaluated religiously committed Catholic v. Protestant perceptions of the adequacy of local community and church-based counseling services. Thirteen hundred Catholics and Protestants representing all 50 states and 87% of RC Dioceses responded to an online survey employing valid and reliable measures. Religiously committed Catholics perceived both Church and community mental health services to be inadequate to meet their needs especially compared to Protestant respondents. Further, Catholic respondents identified 11 counselor competencies that were significantly more important to them than Protestant respondents. Implications for clinical practice, counselor training programs and mental health service delivery to religiously committed Catholics are discussed.

Jamaica, Queens, New York 11439