BARBARA BECKHAM DELEO
JIM DELEO

10 Stuyvesant Crescent
Asheville, NC 28803

828 277 3630

bbdpsy@aol.com

Clinical and Consulting Psychologist

Since leaving Gables, like the old TV series, so far I've lived 3 lives. During the first one, I went to Emory University, graduating with a BA in English Lit and and Master of Arts in Teaching Engish. I married a classmate, Lucian Rice, and taught English in an Atlanta high school while he completed his MD at Emory and internship in Atlanta. We moved to Durham NC for his residency at Duke where we joyfully adopted our first child, Jonathan.

We moved to Asheville in 1973 and 2 years later adopted our daughter, Rebecca. For the next 12 years I was an archetypal small Southern town's doctor's wife, raising our children, volunteering at church and in the community, serving on community boards etc. During that period your Gable's chaplain also began teaching an interdenominational Bible study for women which really grew. By 1985 I was speaking around the country to groups of women, had written a book, The Power of a Woman's Love, and was dabbling with the cusp of the women's movement. This first life ended when Lucian and I amicably separated after 17 years of marriage.

I knew I was supposed to be a psychologist since the eighth grade and now was determined to pick up that lost thread. I officially began my second life when I moved from Asheville to San Diego to obtain my PhD. at the California School of Professional Psychology. In my final semester there I met fellow psychologist, Jim DeLeo, we married in 1990 and I was delighted to add step-daughter, Karen, to our family. We finished raising the children, I began a clinical private practice in San Diego and was an adjunct professor at CSPP.

When we married Jim agreed to move to Asheville when my aging parents began to need our help. That came sooner than expected when one of those California wild-fires swept through our neighborhood burning over 100 homes. Although gratefully our home was spared we began the process of moving to Asheville in 1998.

My third life began during this transition when I was invited to provide some training to employees at the US Nokia headquarters in Dallas. That seemed a good way to transition from closing one private practice and opening a new one. Subsequently, I was invited to the global headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. This led to an association with an international group of corporate consultants, who also worked with other global corporations with headquarters in Europe. So from 1998 through 2011 I had the wonderful adventure of providing in-depth executive coaching/consulting/teaching to leaders and their teams from all over the world. This enabled me to travel extensively, with Jim often joining me, across Europe, and to Japan and China.

In 2010 my parents, now in their 90's and living in Asheville, began needing our regular help. I curtailed my travel and officially retired from consulting in Jan. of this year, thus ending my third life.

At present I continue to maintain and enjoy a private clinical practice in Asheville and cherish time spent with our three grandchildren, Gracie,4, Alora,3, and Maxwell, 2. I've renewed my volunteer work, now serving on the board of the Council On Aging of all things, and find myself frequently wondering what in the world will come next!