MACON – David Schnarch, Ph.D., founder of the Marriage and Family Health Center in Evergreen, Col., will be the featured speaker at the Seventh Annual Armour Lecture Series to be held at the School of Medicine, March 2 and 3. He will speak on intimacy, sexuality and relationships.
On Thursday, March 2, Schnarch will present a lecture entitled “Passionate Marriage®: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships.” The 7:30 p.m. lecture will be held in the School of Medicine Auditorium and is open to the public free of charge.
Participants at the Friday, March 3, events will receive six continuing education credit hours for “Resolving Emotional Gridlock: Helping Clients Grow Through Conflict” from 9 a.m. to noon and “Resurrecting Sex: Helping Your Clients Turn Sexual Difficulties Into A Passionate Marriage” from 1 to 4 p.m. The cost for Friday’s sessions is $60.
“Dr. Schnarch is one of the nation’s leading authorities on human romantic relationships,” said Dr. Mary Anne Armour, former co-director of the master’s program in family therapy, which she founded at Mercer in 1983. “He is a professional sex therapist who brings a compassionate voice to keeping love and intimacy alive in committed relationships. His teachings are worth our attention.”
Schnarch, a licensed clinical psychologist and author of numerous books, chaired the Professional Education Committee and served on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) for eight years. He is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, with Diplomate status; the first recipient of the AASECT Professional Standard of Excellence Award, and a Clinical Member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). Schnarch currently serves on the editorial board of AAMFT’s Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy. For 17 years he was an associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Urology at Louisiana State University Medical School.
In 1991, Dr. Schnarch wrote the landmark book, Constructing The Sexual Crucible: An Integration of Sexual and Marital Therapy (W. W. Norton & Co.), now used in clinical training programs across the country and read by therapists around the world. His other books include Passionate Marriage: Sex, Love, and Intimacy in Emotionally Committed Relationships (W. W. Norton & Co., March 1997, Owl Books, 1998) and Resurrecting Sex: Resolving Sexual Problems and Rejuvenating Your Relationship (HarperCollins, August, 2002).
Schnarch has been the subject of feature articles on NBC-TV Dateline and CNBC-TV Real Personal, in USA Today, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Town and Country, Family Therapy Networker, Psychology Today, Self, Shape and Mirabella. His comments regularly appear in Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, McCall’s, Glamour, Redbook and other magazines. His work has been featured in television, radio and print media in Italy, Holland, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, South America and South Africa.
The Armour Family Therapy Lecture Series was made possible by a gift from Dr. Mary Anne Armour and Dr. Rollin Armour. Dr. Mary Anne Armour retired from Mercer in 1998, and Dr. Rollin Armour, a former dean of the College of Liberal Arts, retired in 1998 as a professor in the Department of Christianity.
For more information, or to register for the seminar, contact Terri Walker at 478-301-4048 or walker_ea@mercer.edu.
About Mercer University and the Marriage and Family Therapy Program:
In addition to the doctor of medicine degree, Mercer University School of Medicine offers master’s degrees in public health, family therapy and family services, and post-master’s certificates in medical family therapy and pediatric family therapy for those who have already earned a master’s or doctoral degree in an applied mental health discipline.
Founded in 1833, Mercer University has campuses in Macon and Atlanta as well as three regional academic centers. With 10 schools and colleges, the University offers programs in liberal arts, business, engineering, education, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, law and theology. For 16 consecutive years, U.S. News & World Report has named Mercer University as one of the leading universities in the South.
