Samuel T. Gladding Brief Biography

Samuel T. Gladding is a professor in the Department of Counseling at Wake Forest University. He is a fellow in the American Counseling Association (ACA) and its former president. He has also served as president of the American Association of State Counseling Boards, Chi Sigma Iota, and three ACA divisions: the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES), the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW), and the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors (IAMFC). He is an ASGW fellow and the former editor of the Journal for Specialists in Group Work.

Dr. Gladding has authored numerous books (N=52 with revisions), scholarly articles (N=92), book chapters (N=32), teaching videos (N=17), and poems (N=45). His writings have been translated into half a dozen languages including Korean, Indonesian, Chinese, Polish, and Russian He was a mental health first responder to the 9/11 attack in New York and to the Virginia Tech shootings and has twice been a Fulbright Specialist (Turkey & China). He is the recipient of ACA’s Gilbert and Kathleen Wrenn Award for a Humanitarian and Caring Person, the David K. Brooks, Jr. Distinguished Mentor Award, and the Arthur A. Hitchcock Distinguished Professional Service Award. The Association for Creativity in Counseling (ACC) and ACA have each named awards in his honor.

Dr. Gladding received his degrees from Wake Forest (B.A., M.A. Ed.), Yale (M. A.), and UNC-Greensboro (Ph.D.). He is a National Certified Counselor (NCC), a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC), and a practicing Licensed Professional Counselor (North Carolina). He has taught counseling and worked with counselors and universities in Estonia, Austria, Malaysia, Sweden, Ireland, Germany, South Africa, Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, Mexico, and Canada. Before becoming a counselor educator, he worked fulltime as a clinician in a rural mental health center and was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He is married to Claire Tillson Gladding and the father of three grown children. For fun, Dr. Gladding enjoys playing with his therapy dog, Lexie, as well as traveling, reading humor and biographies, and interacting with friends and family.