Our Story 

My name is Joshua Schendel. I am a professor and a philosophical practitioner, certified in Logic-Based Therapy with the National Philosophical Counseling Association. 

My wife, Bethanne, and I have lived across the United States in our adult life together. In 2022, we were able to move to the Bozeman area. For me, it was a homecoming (I grew up in central Montana). For both of us, it was a dream (we had honeymooned in the Big Sky area). Yet, being back under the big sky soon brought to the surface for me a kind of internal dissonance. 

The modern world I inhabit (even in the wilds of Montana) seems to push life away from the holistic toward the fragmented and segmented, away from the calm and considered toward the frantic and efficient, away from nature and people toward the virtual. At the same time, the pristinely pine-fresh air, the cold, clear riverways, and the majestic mountainscapes evoked a sense of deep longing in my soul.  What is that longing, what is it for, and how do I pursue it in this modern world?   

My own education in philosophy, ethics, history, and religion as well as my time in the classroom teaching these subjects have helped me to understand this inner yearning. It is natural to all humans – we desire to know and interact with and be a participant of reality. When our modern life pushes us in the opposite direction, we sense that something isn't right, even if we can't quite put our finger on it. 

So, I wanted to put my training to wider use than simply the classroom. Whatever conflicts you are dealing with, whatever decisions are knocking at your door, whatever longings you want to explore, whatever you want better to understand, let’s sit for a while and converse, and together turn towards the real: Conversens.