Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD

Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD, is cofounder of the Institute for Imago Relationship Therapy, and together with her husband, Harville Hendrix, developed Imago Relationship Therapy and the concept of “conscious partnership.” She is coauthor of seven books with Hendrix: The Couples Companion, The Personal Companion, Giving the Love That Heals, The Parenting Companion, Getting the Love You Want Workbook, Receiving Love, and Receiving Love Workbook. She and Hendrix also cocreated a video for couples seen on more than 300 public television stations.

Hunt has been active within the women’s movement for more than 18 years. She is founder and president of The Sister Fund, a private women’s fund dedicated to the social, political, economic, and spiritual empowerment of women and girls, and has helped to found a number of other women’s funding institutions, including the Dallas Women’s Foundation, the New York Women’s Foundation, and the National Network of Women’s Funds (now Women’s Funding Network). An inductee in the National Women’s Hall of Fame, she has been recognized for her leadership in building the women’s funding movement with the National Creative Philanthropy Award from the National Network of Women’s Funds and Gloria Steinem’s Women of Vision Award through the Ms. Foundation for Women, among other honors.

In 2004, Hunt completed a doctoral degree at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where she explored how theology, or a spiritual perspective, has strengthened the work of women’s activism. Her dissertation, “The Religious Roots of American Feminism,” became the basis of her book, Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance.

Feeling strongly that our ability to function with integrity and wholeness within our communities and larger lives begins with our family connections, Hunt focuses a great deal of her time and energies on sustaining connections with her husband, their six children, and three grandchildren.