Seeing double

Wright State graduate Anthony D’Souza modeled a counseling center in his native India after the School of Professional Psychology’s Ellis Institute.

It has risen in the outer precincts of Mumbai in India — a clone of Wright State University’s time-tested training ground for professional psychologists.

Developing an Indian version of the Duke E. Ellis Institute of Human Development was the brainchild of Anthony D’Souza, a Jesuit priest who earned his Psy.D. from Wright State’s School of Professional Psychology in 1994.

“This is a center I worked to build over the last 10 years. It is the first of its kind in the country,” said D’Souza. “If I can train professional psychologists who would get the kind of training I got at Wright State, then we would have many good psychologists available in the country.”

The Ellis Institute is a 30,000-square-foot community-based training facility on Dayton’s near-west side that houses Wright State’s doctoral program for mental health professionals while serving as a clinic for underserved residents.

D’Souza returned to Wright State for several days in early November to meet with six students at the Ellis Institute who are planning to come to India. The students will spend 10 days at the new center, at mental health facilities to understand the challenges and at the homes of families to understand the culture.

“It’s a very enthusiastic group,” he said of the students.

D’Souza said they are interested in learning about the Indian culture and studying issues related to women, children and the gay and lesbian community.

D’Souza said family life in India is currently being challenged because of economic/social changes. Many parents who never had a chance to go to a university have become affluent enough to send their children to college. But that has exposed the children to new ways and created a divide with the parents.

“They are living in two different worlds,” he said.

D’Souza raised $1 million to build the new center, which took about eight years to construct. Called Premanjali, which translates as “offering of love,” it sits on two acres heavily populated with fruit trees that produce mangoes and coconuts. It was built without cutting down a single tree.

“I fell in love with the place,” D’Souza said.

The three-story building, which was completed in 2012, includes counseling rooms, classrooms, offices, a library, a dining hall and residential space for families who have to travel. It also features one-way mirrors and video recording technology to help the psychologists study and improve their interactions and counseling of clients.

“There is a lot of theoretical training available in India, but translating the theoretical knowledge into practice is lacking,” D’Souza said.

He has spent the past two years publicizing the center and has now started to recruit staff.

He chose Wright State for his doctoral education because he wanted professional training in clinical psychology so he could provide those services in his native India.

“I could have done my doctorate in India, but I wanted to be a good therapist so I was looking for good supervision,” he said. “Some of the professors at SOPP were very supportive, willing to adjust the program to the needs of the students.”

D’Souza received the doctoral class award for excellence in the practice of clinical psychology and in 2004 was named Outstanding Alumni of the Year.

Wright State is currently engaged in a $150 million fundraising campaign that promises to further elevate the school’s prominence by expanding scholarships, attracting more top-flight faculty and supporting construction of state-of-the-art facilities.

Led by Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of university namesakes Wilbur and Orville Wright, the campaign has raised more than $107 million so far.

“There is growing demand and need for psychological services, especially for underserved populations,” said LaPearl Winfrey, interim dean of SOPP. “The campaign support will help us to continue to provide quality service while also providing excellent training and education for our doctoral students.”

D’Souza has developed an eclectic approach to therapy he uses to counsel children, teenagers, young men and women, couples and families. He has also integrated psychology and spirituality. He travels the world making presentations titled “Integration of Psychology and Spirituality from an Eastern Perspective.”

“Essentially it is to empower people to deal with their own problems rather than being dependent upon another person,” he said.

D’Souza said the people he counsels often get stuck in the way they interact with others and won’t change because it makes them insecure. Through inner personal exploration and studying Eastern spirituality, he concluded that people’s egos, or false selves, produce negative feelings when threatened by criticism, etc.

D’Souza has developed a framework and exercises to deal with one’s negative experiences and live a mindful and choice-filled life of freedom and joy. He has chronicled that in his book “Discovering Awareness: A Guide to Inner Peace, Strength and Freedom.”