Tag Archives: counseling program

From Massage Therapist to Mental Health Counselor

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By: Gregg Kleiner

For 12 years, Lindsay Dec worked as a licensed massage therapist. She noticed that many of her
clients would talk during the massage — telling her stories about their lives and describing
challenges they were facing, from fears to family issues.
“People seemed to be looking to me for help or advice,” Dec says.
Because she didn’t feel qualified to do much more than listen, Dec started looking for a new
career that would give her the skills and credentials to help people in a new way — one that
could bridge the mind-body connection. During her search, she stumbled across the Master of
Counseling program at OSU-Cascades.
“When I found that, I just knew,” she says. “I wanted to continue to help others, so this was
perfect.”

The program’s location was also perfect, since Dec was already living in Bend, Oregon, where
she’d moved in 2010. The program’s part-time option allowed her to continue her massage
practice while pursuing a master’s degree.
She credits her parents with influencing her overall career path.
“They always taught us t

o help people, to foster connections with others, and my mom always
emphasized the golden rule,” Dec says.
In 2014, she earned her master’s in clinical mental health counseling and now works as a
counselor at Bend Counseling and Biofeedback Inc.
“The best part of the program was — and still is — the faculty,” Dec says. “They are just
amazing — the adjunct faculty, too. There is great breadth of experience and a range of
strengths. I felt very well-supported, and I’m still in contact with some of the faculty.”
While in the program, Dec completed three different internships — one at the Warm Springs
Indian Reservation, one at a Bend relief nursery for vulnerable children and one at the
counseling office where she now works. She also earned a certificate in Interpersonal
Neurobiology from Portland State University and completed HeartMath Biofeedback training
during her graduate program.
“It was a little insane,” she says of all she did while working on her master’s.
Now that her formal training is complete, Dec still stays busy. She serves on the OSU-Cascades’
Counseling Program Advisory Board and is raising a puppy named PJ to be a certified therapy
dog.

“Therapy dogs are great in nursing homes, and they can help kids who struggle with reading,”
says Dec, who brings PJ to the office with her. “My clients love her and say PJ is
going to make a great therapy dog.”
For Dec, OSU-Cascades was the right location with the right faculty and the right focus. And it’s
clear she loves her new career.

 

100 Years of Counseling

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The counseling program at OSU has come a long way since the founder, Professor Frank H. Shepherd, taught the first counseling course during the Spring Semester of 1917. This year, Oregon State University’s College of Education’s Counseling program is proud to announce the celebration of its 100th anniversary.

Entering the 100th year of counseling, Cass Dykeman shares, that “the centennial is a chance for all of Oregon to celebrate the pivotal role the citizens of the State have played in the continuous development of this profession, [which is] so vital to the health of the nation.” Cass Dykeman, the Associate Professor in Counselor Education at OSU’s College of Education, has been a part of the program’s development since 1998.

After receiving a Master’s in Educational Psychology with a School Counseling concentration and a Doctorate in Counselor Education, Dykeman pursued his passion in the following years as a counselor educator, and as an elementary school and high school counselor in Washington. Although he loves his current job, he admits that he “miss[es] playing football with the kids at recess. You don’t get recess teaching doctoral students!”

Today, Dykeman continues his work as an Associate Professor in the program. His favorite part of the program is working with doctoral students on their dissertations because, “helping advanced students create new knowledge is a thrill” for him. He enjoys the manuscript style of the dissertations, because many of the doctoral students publish their efforts in peer-reviewed journals. Rebecca Bolante is one of Cass’ prior students who has produced two peer-reviewed journal articles from her dissertation about Threat Assessment. Dykeman has already served as a major professor for 24 PhD graduates, and says, “[his] goal is to hit 50 by the time [he] retire[s].”

Dykeman understands that pursuing a doctorate is an overall large investment; but finds the Counseling program unique because, it has offered “distance hybrid education since 1933” and is ranked third oldest for continuously operating counselor education program in the world. Dykeman adds that, the program is “high quality and [has] a proven track record.”