ABOUT

Welcome to my blog, Ever Present Hope. My name is Susan Schulte. I have a Master’s Degree in counseling and psychological services and a Ph.D. in educational psychology with an emphasis on developmental psychology. For 24 years I worked as a crisis line counselor for a crisis line in a large metropolitan area. I spoke with callers of a variety of ages, from adolescence to the elderly years, who called with various concerns. One of the main purposes of a crisis line of course is to help people who are contemplating suicide to not act on their thoughts and to help them to be safe. People who are not suicidal also call crisis lines because they are struggling with depression or anxiety, having relationship problems, feeling lonely and having difficulty meeting others, grieving the loss of someone they love, and with many other issues. As a counselor, I heard about the difficult and sad aspects of people’s lives. And yet I was often struck by how the people I spoke with had something that kept them going, that somewhere within them was a degree of hope. And this is true for all of us, not just for people who feel they need to call a crisis line. All of us as we live each day and experience the various aspects of life, with sometimes things going pretty smoothly and other times having challenges to deal with, are helped by the presence of hope. It my hope that reading my blog will add meaning and hope to your life.