Ben Bhasme, M.A., LPC
Executive Director
Ben is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Missouri and he has a Master of Arts degree in Counseling.
Ben has been serving the St. Louis community as a Counselor in private practice since 1998. Ben works with individuals and couples affected by trauma from various types of abuse, substance and sex addictions, personality disorders and marital infidelity. As a therapist, trained in the Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) model, Ben is especially passionate about helping couples repair fractures in marriage and build healthy marriages.
Ben is also a seasoned public speaker that conducts Marriage retreats in various parts of the country. He also teaches seminars on topics such as Soul Care, Leadership, Addictions, Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts, and Dealing with Our Stories to name a few.
In recent years he has partnered with fellow leaders across our country to bring help and healing to those who are suffering from personal, marital and leadership issues.
Ben believes that we are made in God’s image. As image bearers we carry God’s brilliance in our very being. God hard wired us to find meaning, purpose and our identity in a loving relationship with Himself and others.
Because of sin we now live in a broken world and in this reality suffering is inevitable. Ben is convinced that the source of our deepest suffering is dealing with fractured, strained, disconnected, or outright loss of relationships due to betrayal, abuse, neglect, and various other types of wounds. Wounds that are perpetrated by significant people in our lives, whom we love deeply.
To survive these substantial wounds, we develop self protective mechanisms to cope with the ongoing pain and prevent future harm. While the self protective mechanisms promise “safety” they also close the door to healing, to love, to restoration, and to living a life that is alive with the brilliance of being an image bearer. Self protective coping strategies propel those who engage in them towards avoidance of real connections, real relationships, real love and replace love with fear, the fear of getting hurt. Operating from this fear now leads the self protecting individual to become the one who causes others the same harm he/she is trying to avoid.
Ben believes his work is to help people resolve, cut through, and free themselves from fear based coping and transform into people living freely with beauty, strength, and the richness of being a person that bears the very character of The One True God and share it with the world around them.
His favorite quote;
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
—C.S. Lewis