About Dr. Whetstine
Ralph Whetstine is a psychologist, consultant, coach, author and teacher. He was born and grew up in the central Michigan farm country. He received his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Michigan. Shortly after he moved to Chicago and began work as a therapist at the Anixter Center in the New Focus Program, a post-acute brain injury rehabilitation program. Desiring to expand his abilities and experience, Dr. Whetstine then took on a position as residential manager for a company providing residential services for persons with moderate to severe mental retardation on Chicago’s north side.
Fulfilling his desire to complete his education, Dr. Whetstine entered graduate school at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (now Argosy University), and completed his Master of Arts degree and Doctorate in clinical psychology, receiving training in Cognitive, Behavioral, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Upon his graduation, he started working as a therapist at the Family Counseling Center of Joliet and also continued briefly as a staff therapist in the Center for Contextual Approaches to Distress ( a DBT program) located in Tinley Park, Illinois. From there he moved on to a position in the Self Injury Recovery Services Program (SIRS) at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital, and eventually transferred to the Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Program at Alexian Brothers Hospital. During that time Dr. Whetstine accepted several invitations to be a guest lecturer at a local university and eventually left Alexian Brothers to pursue teaching full time. He began practicing independently in 2006 and continues to maintain an active and growing private practice.
Dr. Whetstine's personal interests in the field of psychology are diverse. His interest areas include such topics as therapy process, positive psychology, outcomes studies in clinical intervention, the effects of therapist relationship skills in treatment process and outcome, the nature of consciousness, the relationship between unconscious and conscious processes and a deep and abiding interest in human potential and spirituality.
He writes extensively about human potential and how to remove the psychological blocks that prevent people from achieving the success they desire, and living fully realized lives.
He lives in the Greater Chicago area and has been married since 1999.