Section 1 - INTRODUCTION
Part 1 - The History
Love Therapy was developed by Dr. Ralph Ankenman in the 1970’s. Dr. Ankenman was raised in a liberal church, but he actually met Jesus Christ in a Baptist group. Although he became a Baptist, he believes his background enabled him to think outside traditional fundamentalist precepts.
He became a medical missionary in Bangladesh in the 60’s, then in various inner-city missions in the United States. After 15 years he returned to his home in Cedarville, Ohio to resume his medical practice with the same missionary spirit.1 He began noticing a correlation between emotional immaturity and an array of medical problems, both emotional and physical. He developed many of the foundational concepts presented in this paper and has been using them to heal people in his practice for decades.
While attending Ohio State University (1977-79) to complete a doctorate in Psychiatry (he was already an MD), he taught Love Therapy for three years at Layman’s Challenge for Today, an early Xenos group. Ankenman was immediately drawn to the grace-based sanctification taught at our Bible studies, which was compatible with his Love Therapy approach. His teachings were employed in various Xenos ministries with great success because of this unique compatibility. [Read more →]
Footnotes:
- Ankenman claims to have several thousand state-supported patients, indigents and others he services without charging the fees typical for Psychiatrists. It is typical for him to spend one or two hours with a patient, rather than rushing through three or four per hour. [↩]
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