Reverend Dianne Sullivan
In 1968, Dianne Sullivan received a B.S. from Boston University School of Education and taught elementary school for five years. She was nominated to “Who’s Who in American Teachers” in 1970. In 1977, she earned an M.Ed. in Counseling from Northeastern University, and has most recently taught as an adjunct professor at St. Joseph College's Graduate School of Counseling.
Dianne has been a Marriage & Family Therapist for 25 years with a private practice specializing in individual and couples therapy. As a holistic practicioner, she draws from many disciplines including depth psychology, pastoral counseling and family systems utilizing tools such as Emotional Freedom Technique and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). She is a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and her two dogs provide comfort and a sense of security and relief to clients.
In May 2009, Dianne was ordained as a deacon by Bishop Lorraine Bouffard. Within ten months, the Parish of the Divine was birthed in Hartford. “Currently, we are small in number but large in parishioner spirit.”
As an intern of Clinical Pastoral Education at John Dempsey Hospital, the chaplaincy program offers a sacred vehicle to care for patients from a pastoral perspective. “Without that kind of care, we are adrift on a lonely ocean,” she says. Dianne is pursuing a Masters in Divinity at the Hartford Seminary, with the goal of being ordained by the priesthood and serving as a board certified chaplain.
Dianne and her husband John have been married for nearly 41 years; her adult children are her pride and joy. She often tells her clients she's had ten different husbands, before explaining, “He’s not the same man in so many ways. And neither am I. We are both growing and evolving.”
Currently, Dianne has two books in the making. One of them, “Blessings, Rituals and Sacred Moments”, has grown out of her worship services at John Dempsey Hospital, her reflections, homilies and over ten years of leading women's retreats. The second book is entitled, "Witness to Love. Radical Skills to Love Better." which has grown out of her years as a therapist. "My clients have taught me that it takes great persistence, patience and courage to love. We all need to tease apart our mythology about love and get down to the actual lived experience we are having and let that teach us how to love better."