William "Skip" MacCarty, DMin
Founder and President

The History Behind Stress: Beyond Coping

The Personal Story

Skip MacCarty, DMin, is the founder and creator of the Stress: Beyond Coping seminar series.  Dr. MacCarty began studying stress management in the early 1970s.  As a christian pastor, he believed strongly that stress management should be an integral part of church ministry, so he started teaching classes to his own congregation and other local church groups.  

Then he went through a crisis in his own life:  a devastating divorce that seemed to sweep away everything and everone that he valued:  a beautiful wife and family, loving friends, supportive extended family, and a stable career.  The divorce threatened his prospects as a minister, and financial insecurity loomed menacingly.  Not until that moment did he realize how much his own sense of self-worth depended on his family, his career, and his friends. Now he had nothing, and he felt like nothing.

The rest of Dr. MacCarty's story -- a modern take on the biblical story of Job -- is told in the Stress: Beyond Coping seminar.  But during that desolate period, he discovered that most of the stress management principles he had previously taught were utterly useless in a personal crisis.   And through the rebuilding years of his life, he learned -- and  applied -- the principles he now shares in his current books and seminars.  

The Chinese character for “crisis” is a compound word of two other characters -- “danger” and “opportunity.” Dr. MacCarty learned that in every crisis lurks danger.  But it’s equally true that embedded in every crisis is an opportunity, even though the opportunity may be hard to see at the time.  Through his personal crisis, Dr. MacCarty recognized an opportunity to create a stress management seminar that could truly help others.  That is how the Stress: Beyond Coping series was born.

Dr. MacCarty is currently an associate pastor for a 3,000+ member church in Michigan.  He continues to study and teach stress management, which has now been his passion for over 30 years. 

The Business Story

The Stress: Beyond Coping seminar series was first introduced in San Diego, California in 1999.  Since then, it has been taught around the world in India, Serbia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, and Japan as well as many locations in the United States.  The series has also been translated into Spanish and French.    

Lecture materials, slides, and participant workbooks were first published by Health Connection, a health education subsidiary of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that markets primarily to private and public educational institutions. Stress: Beyond Coping is the official stress program of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.   

In 2008, Dr. MacCarty formed a business alliance with Rock @ Science LLC, a company that specializes in science and health education. Rock @ Science founder and owner, Dr. Pamela Coburn-Litvak, received her PhD in Neurobiology & Behavior from the State University of New York, Stony Brook. She has published research articles on the effects of stress on the brain in Neuroscience and Neurobiology of Learning and Behavior.  Dr. Coburn-Litvak developed the brain/body physiology segments of the Stress: Beyond Coping seminar and continues to collaborate with Dr. MacCarty on other writing projects. 

In 2009, Dr. MacCarty formed his own company to distribute the Stress: Beyond Coping seminar materials on the world wide web.  Plans are also underway to develop a corporate wellness program and online education courses from the seminar materials.

Participant workbooks for the series are still distributed through Health Connection (1-800-548-8700).

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 Stress: Beyond Coping is an internationally renowned company providing stress management seminars and other stress education tools.