Chris Ball

City: Seattle

State: WA

Languages: English

Personalized Affiliation: Christianity

Spiritual Spheres: Christianity

Affinity Groups:

Category:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 2065524360

Website: http://www.polisrecoveryproject.org/

Focus Area: Addiction, Alcoholism, Creative Arts, Enneagram, Grief and Loss, Men's Issues, Mental Health/Depression, Mindfulness/Meditation

Social Media:

Profile: Chris views his vocation as a blend of ‘wounded healer,’ story farmer,’ ‘psychonaut’ and ‘shadow boxer’. This unique role provides him the sacred opportunity to help and empower clients to discover and explore their life as being made in God’s image and their journey of becoming their true, whole selves in Christ by the Spirit—as creational, restorative conduits of faithful presence in the social architecture of redemptive communities for the life of the world. In relocating to Seattle, Chris developed Polis Recovery Project to be a trusted clinically-informed yet distinctively Christian counseling resource. His work is focused in the areas of addiction recovery, trauma recovery, sexuality and mental health issues. He approaches the craft of counseling as applied language arts concentrated in the ‘cure of souls’—melding soul care, psychotherapy and spiritual direction. His therapeutic voice has been shaped by narrative therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), mindful self-compassion (MSC), transtheoretical model (TTM) stages of change, motivational interviewing (MI), solution-focused therapy (SFT), internal family systems (IFS) and trauma-informed expressive arts therapy. Chris was born and raised in Virginia. His personal and communal experiences growing up with and around addiction, trauma and mental health set the course for his study of psychology and religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), and then counseling and theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) under the mentorship of Dr. Sam Williams. He helped build the residential addiction recovery program at Converting Hearts Ministries before launching a new Bridgehaven Counseling Associates office in downtown Raleigh in partnership with the Summit Church and Christ the King Presbyterian Church (PCA) under the supervision of Dr. Brad Hambrick. Chris served on the City of Raleigh’s Substance Abuse Advisory Commission, and was also a founding board member of Recovery Communities of North Carolina, a non-profit that seeks to promote addiction recovery, wellness and citizenship through advocacy, education and support. He completed a pastoral internship under Geoff Bradford at Christ the King Presbyterian Church (PCA), and served as an ordained PCA ruling elder in Raleigh and Seattle. To cultivate a more contemplative ethos to his life, spirituality and therapeutic posture, Chris completed the ‘Way of the Heart’ spiritual formation cohort through Selah Center, and is certified as a spiritual director through Christian Formation & Direction Ministries Northwest’s (CFDM NW). Chris is married to (the brilliant and elegant) Ashley Rea, and they live with their two pups (Rusty Ray and Keller Bear) in West Seattle, where they are a part of All Souls Church (ACNA). Chris is a devoted, third generation Boston Red Sox fan, and an avid re-reader of his textual mentors—Saint Augustine, John O’Donohue, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, James K. A. Smith, Hans Boersma, Charles Taylor, Albert Camus, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Carl Jung, David Benner, Henri Nouwen and Gerald May.