About

About the author

Ray Biersbach was a Catholic seminarian from 1958 to 1969, first as a high school student for the Diocese of Buffalo and then for the Society of St. Columban. He is grateful for all that both schools generously shared with him.

He earned degrees from Fordham University in Religious Education with a concentration in adult spirituality in 1976, and a doctorate in Psychology for Counseling in 1989.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he was a graduate school theology instructor at Seton Hall U., Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington, Long Island, and La Salle U. in Philadelphia. He founded and taught continuing post-doctoral education for over 700 clinicians in advanced case assessment, and treatment strategies.

He is retired from the Diocese of Paterson where he worked in Catholic Charities and as a parish Director of Religious Education. He is also retired from the State of New Jersey where he administered a psychology department of 24 at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital and was principal investigator for a variety of research studies. From 1979 to 2019 he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice settings where he worked with diverse populations. In 2019 he closed his practice to write about the connections between psychotherapy and Catholic anthropology. His third book is in press.

He was ordained a deacon for the diocese of Paterson, NJ, in 1982. He and his wife moved to Edmonds, WA in 2012 to be near their grandchildren. He has worked in a variety of parish programs including diaconal ministry to this day. He has been married for 47 years and has three grown children.