Edward Wahesh

Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Counseling, Villanova University

Dr. Edward Wahesh is an Associate Professor of Counseling at Villanova University, a National Certified Counselor, an Approved Clinical Supervisor, and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT). He has published and presented on motivational interviewing and is co-author of Motivational Interviewing in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (2022), a counselling-focused text that highlights the use of MI across a range of clinical mental health settings.

Expert Bio

Dr. Edward Wahesh is an Associate Professor of Counseling at Villanova University, a National Certified Counselor, an Approved Clinical Supervisor, and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT). He has clinical experience across college counselling, community mental health, psychiatric inpatient care, substance use treatment, and secondary school settings, and he teaches in Villanova's CACREP-accredited graduate counselling program. He teaches courses in motivational interviewing, addiction counselling, prevention, clinical assessment, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Dr. Wahesh has published and presented on motivational interviewing and is co-author of Motivational Interviewing in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (2022), a counselling-focused text that highlights the use of MI across a range of clinical mental health settings. His scholarship more broadly focuses on counsellor preparation, substance use, and the social determinants that shape suicidality, substance use disorder, and treatment access. In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Dr. Wahesh has delivered trainings, webinars, and professional development sessions on motivational interviewing for professional counsellors and other helping professionals. In these trainings, he emphasises practical strategies for strengthening engagement, responding skilfully to ambivalence, and supporting meaningful behaviour change in complex clinical contexts. His teaching and professional contributions have been recognised with the 2025 Tolle Lege Award for Full-Time Faculty Teaching Excellence in Villanova University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the 2024 International Association for Addictions and Offender Counselors' Counselor Educator Excellence Award.