Dr. John Van Epp

John Van Epp, PhD in Counseling/Psychology, is the author of How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, published by McGraw-Hill, which blends in-depth research with humorous stories to provide a map for making healthy relationship choices.

Dr. Van Epp’s evidence-based relationship programs were developed from the combination of his twenty-five years of clinical counseling in his private practice, of his previous position as founding pastor of a nondenominational church, and of his extensive reviews of research in premarital, marital and family relations from teaching graduate marriage and family coursework as an adjunct professor. These relationship programs include: PICK (How to Avoid Falling for a Jerk—for singles of all ages), Couple LINKS (for committed couples), and Our Home Runs (for entire families and designed to facilitate family bonding); Home Run Dads; Home Run Parents; Ultimate Spiritual Resilience & Relationships (R&R—for individuals and couples to build core spiritual values and the skills to integrate those values into major domains of life); and Relationship Counseling with the RAM (a  professional course that provides a model for assessing and counseling relationship concerns).

Dr. Van Epp has trained and certified more than 10,000 instructors from all fifty states and ten countries who have taught these programs to more than a million from settings including the military, social agencies, healthy relationship coalitions, jails and prisons, intimate-partner violence shelters, singles organizations, high schools, universities and colleges, churches and faith-based organizations. These programs come in three formats: teach-out-of-the-box certification courses, plug-n-play discussion group courses, and online courses—all having both Christian and community (or non-faith) versions.

Dr. Van Epp and his relationship programs based around his innovative Relationship Attachment Model were awarded the Smart Marriage Impact Award in 2008 and have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Psychology Today, Magazine, and Cosmopolitan; and he has appeared on the CBS Early Show, Good Morning America, and Fox News.