Elizabeth Celeste Moneyhun Gaines has dedicated her career to serving others and promoting wellness as an independent clinical pastoral psychotherapist based out of the Indianapolis area. She celebrates more than 30 years of practice with a specialty in marriage and family therapy, though her practice has also provided her the opportunity to support numerous individual patients as they navigate a broad range of situational and mental health challenges. Born and raised in San Francisco, Ms. Gaines’ calling to mental healthcare began as a sophomore in high school.
Ms. Gaines remembers being “fascinated with people” and felt a vocation to therapy even then. A good listener with strong communication skills, she loved helping classmates solve their interpersonal problems and began to invite them over to her house to talk with them in her large, private library. By the time she graduated high school, Ms. Gaines had at least two visitors each week and had developed a reputation for her astute counseling abilities.
Growing significantly from her informal beginnings as a peer counselor, Ms. Gaines pursued extensive education and training to become a licensed mental health provider. She first attended Southern Illinois University, earning a Master of Science in rehabilitation, and went on to complete a Master of Arts from the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana, before being awarded a doctoral degree in alternative medicine from Holos University Graduate Seminary. Ms. Gaines is a certified clinical social worker and a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Indiana.
The core of Ms. Gaines’ practice is her belief in God and her calling to help guide her patients back to health and peace through faith. She lives by the dictum to “love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all of your soul,” and attributes her lasting success as a psychotherapist and counselor to her enduring faith. As a part of her commitment to serving others, Ms. Gaines is active in numerous faith-based, cultural, and social outreach organizations, including Unity in Diversity and We’re All In this Together, and a supporter of nonprofits benefiting Native American and indigenous youth.
In addition to her work on behalf of charitable organizations, Ms. Gaines is a member of the board of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, where she has served for many years. She is the recipient of the Arbor Day Foundation’s 2020 Indiana Tree Drive Award and a Workshop Endeavor Award from the National Board for the Mentally Challenged, and has been presented with a ceremonial pipe in recognition of her work for Northern Plains Reservation Aid.
Ms. Gaines looks forward to continuing her work as a counselor and psychotherapist for as long as she is able to, including offering faith-based and pastoral treatment options to those she treats. She is deeply proud of the positive impact that she has been able to have on her patients’ lives, particularly her work with patients experiencing extreme depression or suicidal ideation, describing her most significant accomplishment as a clinician as “saving people’s lives.”
