Mary Kathryn Clark

Biography

Mary Kathryn Clark is an educator and licensed professional counselor. Her thirty-year teaching experience included teaching English and history in public high schools and directing a private church kindergarten. She organized a private preschool program for special needs children before Virginia public schools had special education programs. For eighteen years, she served as supervisor of reading and curriculum planning for a city school system. She taught courses at several universities and was an instructor of elementary education at Shenandoah University.

In 1986, she met the requirements for licensure as a professional counselor in the State of Virginia, and had a successful private practice in three communities. Though her primary work was with women’s issues, she also counseled with men, couples, children and families. As a minister’s wife for thirty-two years, she planned retreats and religious activities for children, youth and adults. She taught an adult Sunday School class of women for twenty-five years.

Life has afforded many experiences of growth which include being an only child, having stepchildren and no natural children, being a caretaker for her husband who was a victim of Alzheimer’s for five years, looking for love in an abusive relationship, and finally experiencing the “dark night of the soul.” All of these growth experiences propelled her into deep soul-searching and the realization that God can heal all wounds.