Marnie - Bethesda Workshops

Erica Vaughn

As Bethesda Workshops’ Marketing Director, Erica helps share the hope and healing available at Bethesda. Her work includes creating our messages shared through email, social media, and on our website.

She brings experience in marketing several small businesses and non-profit organizations in the Southeast. Erica earned her BS in Business Administration in Marketing from Appalachian State University and completed a certificate program in Digital Marketing with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She and her husband have three kids. She enjoys traveling with her family to the Carolina beaches and mountains.

Shelly Gibbs

Shelly Gibbs is a nonprofit consultant and business coach who partners with organizations and individuals navigating their next season of growth. Her work centers on three pillars: strategy, systems, and staff — the building blocks of sustainable, thriving organizations.

Before launching her practice, Shelly served as Executive Director of NorthState Care Clinic and Director of Moral Revolution, two nonprofits dedicated to equipping and empowering people to live as their best, truest selves.

Shelly brings a whole-person perspective to her work, grounded in the belief that we are tri-polar beings — body, soul, and spirit — and that lasting transformation requires all three. She partners with people in their pursuit of freedom, peace, and abundance, holding firmly to this: we are better together.

She holds a BA in Liberal Studies and a Multi-Subject Teaching Credential from Simpson University. A Northern California native, she's now rooted in the Pacific Northwest.

Melissa Haas

Melissa Haas serves as the spouse-supporting therapist at HopeQuest. Melissa has a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and is a licensed professional counselor. Passionate about spiritual community, healthy marriages, and intimacy with God, Melissa regularly facilitates small groups and teaches and speaks on these topics in order to help the Body of Christ grow relationally with God and each other.

Melissa and her husband Troy have been married for thirty-four years and have three adult children and one grand-daughter. They have devoted their lives to helping others find hope and freedom from addiction, giving back the comfort they have received on their own journeys of healing.

Daniel Kiser

Daniel is a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist in the state of Tennessee. He has earned master degrees in Marital and Family Therapy and Biblical Studies from Lee University. Throughout his clinical experience, he has demonstrated clinical effectiveness working with adolescents and families through utilization of evidenced based approaches in his roles as a counselor, clinical supervisor, and behavioral health manager. He has worked with adolescents with severe suicidal behaviors, anxiety, depression, aggression, and high-risk behaviors in residential treatment. Addressed the relational distress within the parent-child relationship created by their child’s disruptive behavioral responses, helping parents through their despair, resentment, and disillusionment. He is invested in the integration of theology and psychology, believing that activation of human longings, desires, and vitality for life is based upon both disciplines. Aside from professional development, he also has experienced the profound impact of a transformative therapeutic relationship that provides accountability, exploration of underlying wounds and thoughts, and compassionate care. Counseling is oriented towards reclaiming, rediscovering, and restoring vital aspects of human development and he is eager to help others in their process as well.

Founder

Marnie C. Ferree

M.A.,LMFT,CSAT

Marnie C. Ferree is the founder of Bethesda Workshops and served as its executive and clinical director until her semi-retirement at the beginning of 2024. She has a national reputation as a leader in the field of sexual addiction, particularly as it presents in women, and she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award in the field. In 1997, Marnie established a workshop program for female sex addicts that was the first of its kind, and eventually that program expanded to become Bethesda Workshops. In 2018, she created a workshop for teen girls who are acting out sexually, another pioneering offering.

During her active career, Marnie was a licensed marriage and family therapist and a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist (CSAT) through the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP). She received her master’s in counseling from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville in 1995, a career change from journalism that was prompted by her personal recovery journey.

In 2002, Marnie first published No Stones: Women Redeemed from Sexual Addiction, (republished in 2010 by Intervarsity Press) as the first Christian book on the subject by a woman personally in recovery. No Stones has been widely acclaimed as a pioneering work and is considered the standard for Christian women. She is also the editor and a contributing author for Making Advances – A Comprehensive Guide for Treating Female Sex and Love Addicts, which is the first (and only) clinical treatment manual to address this population. Her latest book is Out of the Doghouse for Christian Men - A Redemptive Guide for Men Caught Cheating (co-author).

In addition to a workbook for female sex and love addicts, Marnie has published dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers. Of particular note is a comprehensive series on childhood sexual abuse, which was published in 1993 in The Tennessean. The series was ground-breaking in telling survivors’ first-person stories on the record (including her own), and it generated hundreds of responses.

Marnie also was a frequent lecturer at professional and recovery conferences, churches, and schools. In addition, she consulted with Christian churches and organizations about sexual integrity, especially in cases where a leader had committed sexual misconduct. She was also on the faculty with the Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals and helped shape its training program for clergy.

After a long and meaningful career, Marnie supported Mike Vaughn as he assumed the role of executive director in 2024 to continue the long tradition of excellence that she had created. Marnie fully retired at the end of December 2025 and is enjoying a season of rest and leisure in Nashville, where spending time with her five grandchildren brings her great delight.

Marnie continues to receive personal correspondence at mferree@bethesdaworkshops.org, and a sample of her scores of blogs is available on the Bethesda Workshops website under the Resources section: https://bethesdaworkshops.org/our-resources/#blog (Scroll all the way down to Other Resources and select Marnie Ferree in the rectangular box of options.)

marnie's STORY

marnie's Testimony

BLOGs