“My heartbeat is to bring hope to the hopeless and encourage the discouraged.”
That is the reason I got into counseling more than 25 years ago. But, today we live in a much faster-paced world amidst information overload. Difficulties in this life still present as very real. Yet, the time available to try to deal with today’s stress and yesterday’s emotional pain is sometimes extremely hard to come by. Over time, I have continued to seek out better and more efficient treatments for the benefit of my clients.
Over the decades, I have pretty much seen and heard it all. Perhaps, most tragically, is the situation where there has been, in a person’s life, a traumatic event that, perhaps, lasted only one day or over a short period of time. Yet, it would take months or years of talk therapy to get to the root issue so that the client could experience relief and begin to move on in a more healthy way.
In the early days of my counseling practice, most of my training focused on the cognitive-behavioral approach. Through talk therapy, I would work with a client to recognize some of the underlying history and reasons they are responding to life the way they are. With so many broken people, suffering with anxiety, depression, confusion and repressed anger and bitterness, I asked God for wisdom in researching modalities that could move clients down the road to wellness in a more expedient way.
After all, He has created us in His image, knows us intimately and loves us. He doesn’t want us to live “stuck,” focused on ourselves or on our pain. I was prompted to shift my counseling practice to focus on 3 goals: 1) To learn how to get my clients to their root cause(s) as quickly as possible, 2) To address issues efficiently in order to get clients to a healthier place and 3) So they can live the life God has in store for them.
Over the past 25 years, tremendous strides have been made in our understanding of how God has designed our bodies. Crimes can now be solved using DNA. Preventative therapies can now offer hope exploring genetics. But, perhaps, the most impressive recent research is focused on the new science of the brain.
It is my belief that all truth is God’s truth. I also believe that He continually reveals bits and pieces of His creation for us to discover. I choose to believe that He is glorified through the enormous complexities. As I have learned more, clients have experienced relief faster. Hope is more efficiently restored and I thank God I get to be a part of that.
Counseling is complex and treatments vary per client. I have many tools in my toolbox and take the time to custom tailor the best plan for the best result. We will seek to discover the root causes so that we can resolve real issues. There’s time for talk but there’s also tremendous blessing in action.
Life can be hard. But, life can be better! I know, because I’ve lived both seasons. I hope you’ll give me the opportunity to bring hope and encouragement into your life, as I seek to help you down your road to wellness.