Alan Melton, D.Min, LPC
Over the course of my career, I have had several opportunities to do psychoanalytic consulting for organizations. My library consists of a few books on Consultation including: Psychodynamics: For Consultants and Managers; The Psychodynamics of Work and Organizations; Understanding Nonprofit Organizations, and The Administration of Pastoral Counseling Centers. I had done consulting in the past, but it was mainly on how to prevent extremists factions from taking over nonprofit organizations. I did this on the Church Denominational level and on the Local Church level.
My first consulting experience concerned the Southern Baptist Denomination Fundamentalist Takeover. In the Southern Baptist Denomination Fundamentalist Takeover ( 1980-1990), I was a local church pastor who joined the Moderate Movement to stop the Takeover. My Church of course was a non profit organization as well. I further served, as one consultant among others, at the Virginia state level to offer guidance on how to hopefully prevent the Takeover. Our Moderate Group strategy to mobilize the majority against a militant fundamentalist minority unfortunately failed. The Fundamentalists succeeded in taking over the Southern Baptist Convention in 1990, ending a ten year resistance on the part of the Moderates. I left my position as a pastor and State consultant shortly after that time. I next moved from the pastorate to my present position as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist–also in a non profit Psychotherapy Clinic.
My next consultant job was with a local Church that was also going through a similar Fundamentalist Takeover attempt. I worked with the Church Leadership in helping them mount a resistance to this Takeover effort. This Church thankfully succeeded in thwarting the takeover attempt of their congregation. I have continued to consult with this church in other areas of Administrative Process and Pastor/Church Relations.
I have also worked professionally with local congregations in Pastor/Church conflict. I consulted with one Church while my colleague saw their Pastor in individual therapy. We were able to resolve that conflict to the satisfaction of both parties. As a former Executive Director of our Psychotherapy Center, I have also served in the role of consultant in the areas of Mission, Core Values, History and Bylaw Development. In each of these various consultant roles, I have utilized my training and experience in psychoanalytic psychotherapy to offer psychological assessment of organizational problems, and propose organizational solutions for those problems.
As I move toward semi-retirement this next year, I hope to be available for more such psychoanalytic consultation work, especially with non profits, who I know the most about and where I have spent my working career.