Today we’d like to introduce you to Gloria Vanderhorst.
Hi Gloria , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a psychologist, my career has covered the lifespan, starting with working with preschoolers, mainly boys, because female teachers are more distressed by boys than girls. I established my practice in Baltimore, Maryland and enjoyed serving the city for over 25 years before moving to Washington, D.C. Throughout almost 50 years of private practice, I have worked with preschoolers, elementary-aged children, teens, adults, and couples. My training in Emotion Focused Therapy and Internal Family Systems has been effective in helping each client heal from childhood injuries and learn to embrace their strengths.
My recent book, Read, Reflect, Respond: the 3 R’s of Growth and Change is designed to help adults examine their histories and grow into the present. Stimulating essays are paired with guided questions and an opportunity to draw, scribble, and write genuine reactions to the printed words. In this way, each person is guided to uncover parts of themselves and their histories, leading to the opportunity to change and grow.
My book in process How Not To f$%! Up Being A Father, is a guide for fathers on raising boys that maintain access to the full range of emotions and experience a sense of competence about being able to express feelings. For centuries, we have raised boys to suppress access to the more tender range of feelings. Then we expect them to exhibit compassion, form deep commitments, get married, develop an intimate, supportive emotional relationship with another, and eventually provide emotional guidance to their sons and daughters. This is a setup for failure. One cannot lead down a path that they have never been allowed to walk.
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?
After recieiving tenure at Towson University, I moved into private practice in Baltiomre and loved every minute of serving the families in that area. I built a multi-disciplinary practice and fostered a Learning Center that is still growing strong in Baltimore..
The challeng in any profession is keeping up with the research and practice skills. As processes for diagnosing and treating emotional issues has developed, I have mastered what I know to be the two best approaches to treating people: Internal Family Systems and Emotion Focused Therapy. To accomplish maintaining a practice and being available to my family, I have sacrificed extracurricular professional experiences and have not been actively involved in the professional community. This has a cost to it in terms of networking and professional support.
In the midst of my work and management of a thriving practice, I have had physical injuries that have been challenging. An accident, ironically, at a Psychological Convention, ultimately put me in a wheelchair. The challenge of this handicap has givien me more insight into the emotional handicaps that my clients face.
About 20 years ago, when my husband was working in Washington, D.C. and commuting to Baltimore, his company offered to move us to DC. The challenge for me was to start all over in building a private practice in a new place. This has given me a deeper sense of empathy for those who find themselves starting over.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a psychologist, I am most proud of the people I have worked with and watched grow and heal. Being a part of another person’s life intimately and productively takes energy.
I have chosen the Artist/Creative category for two reasons. One, to help another, you have to be creative. From designing games for preschoolers to developing scenarios for adults to see how they are functioning with others, the job of a therapist is a challenge for the creative mind.
My creativity is fueled by art. For decades, I have taken watercolor classes and find the challenge of this art a perfect match for helping others with their own. With watercolor, you have to think “backwards”. You build a painting from light to dark, and you cannot go backwards to find highlights or focal points as you can with oils or other media. You have to think several steps ahead and be patient. That is a perfect match for a therapist.
Recently, my creativity has turned to writing as well. I have published a weekly blog for a few years, and last year I gathered 52 of them into a unique journal book to foster deeper self-understanding. The book: Read, Reflect, Respond: the 3 R’s of Growth and Change is available on Amazon and at any independent bookstore. In January a seond journal bookl will be published: Return, Revisit, Renew: the e R’s of Deeper Discovery.
I am also working on a book for fathers to help them understand how to raise boys with full access to their emotional capabilities. I expect that book to be available in mid-2026.
Thus, the creativity choice.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
As I said earlier, one of the losses in my process is that I was not active in the field at the organizational level. My mentors have thus been books on the treatment process. Richard Schwartz, the developer of Internal Family Systems, and Sue Johnson, the developer of Emotion Focused Therapy, have been my partners, stirring me to grow in my expertise..
My greatest supporter has been my husband, Louis, who has given me the time to attend appointments at all hours of the day when necessary and has been my champion with words of encouragement and cups of coffee.
My clients have been most appreciative, and I especially like the ones who come back years later to tell me that “I was right,” and they should have stayed in therapy years ago.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.drvanderhorst.com
- Instagram: gkvanderhorst
- Facebook: gloria.vanderhorst.7
- LinkedIn: gloria-vanderhorstph-d-730826b/
- Twitter: gloriavanderho8
- Youtube: @gloriakvanderhorst
