Category: Counseling

What is counseling like anyway? On silence and reflection

  

Photo credit: Sam Illic

Most of the people that come to see me for counseling (or call me for health coaching on the phone) wonder “What’s counseling like anyway?  What am I supposed to do? Just start talking?”

I’m going to write about what a typical session with me might look like. But this is about an aspect of counseling that many counselors, regardless of the theoretical approach to counseling, use.

There’s this technique counselors use called “reflection”.
On the surface it seems pretty simple, after listening for a bit (sometimes not very long) your counselor has a turn and responds with what they’ve heard or repeats back the words you’ve said.
Sometimes it’s annoying, just hearing your words parroted back to you. “Uhhh, yes, I just said that.”
But sometimes reflections in the hands of a counselor go beyond what what you’ve said to what’s been unsaid and to the meaning beneath the surface. 
And that my friend, is pretty awesome.

What does it feel like to be listened to in this way?
This can strike you in a least two ways.

Sometimes a reflection in counseling is like the mirrored surface of the pond that you find on an early morning walk when you’ve gotten up before everyone. 
In the stillness, as the fog lifts off pond, the peace and closeness of God is so safe and real, your desire to hold onto that moment overrides the kid in you that wants to skip a rock across it. 
And life and hope seem as beautiful and close as the sky meeting the water.

Sometimes a reflection in counseling is like the reflection of a bathroom mirror at 3am.
When your upward glance this time goes beyond the painted on smile and meets the pain and regret in your eyes.
When the harsh fluorescent light hides nothing, seeing yourself like this brings a moment of clarity of seeing where life and your decisions has brought you. 

The reflection confronts you with the question of do you want this? 
How long will you run and hide?
The pain and how far God seems as ugly as the walls and floor that surrounds you and you are faced with the decision to give into the despair and go back to the numbness or reawaken, come to your senses. And go back home.

We need those moments of peace, or pain, to see where we truly are.
To begin to change.

And one of the worst things we can do as counselors or clients is to miss what needs to seen and heard and known in those moments. 
To interrupt those moments, by being uncomfortable with the silence or trying to rush through.

Reflection and silence: tools, not just for counselors, that enable us to experience both grace and truth.

How’s the practice of silence in your life these days?

When was the last time that you were able to be still and really reflect?

What rose to the surface?

Or what would, if you made the time or space for it?

First video blog, a message for newlyweds

Here’s a video blog (in three parts) for newlyweds on some areas to watch for as you start married life.  I’ve included a written summary below (not a transcription).

It was fun to make this but hard to organize.

I might make this a blog series to say more in depth about each area.

“You get what you create and you get what you allow.” – Henry Cloud

Here are a few areas that are worth paying attention to early on in marriage, being aware of them and dealing with them proactively can help you create the marriage and family you’ve dreamed about and prevent unhealthy and destructive behaviors, attitudes and patterns from damaging your marriage. Marriage can be the absolute greatest thing, it can also be the hardest, scariest, stressful thing.  Getting off to a good start can be extremely helpful.

Talking about, exploring and working on these areas will help you flesh out what your marriage will look and sound like on the surface and on a deeper level, help you define what it will be at its core, its heart.

1) Practical matters.  Deciding and sorting out what your marriage and home will look like.  Where will everything go? Where will you live?  Who will pay the bills?  Who will take out the trash?  There are dozens or hundreds of little, mundane, everyday choices to sort out.  This is also related to the issue of…

2) Time.

How will you spend your time?  Together and alone.  How will you balance it?  This is something to work through day-to-day, week-to-week.  Pulling back, there is also the question of what will the rhythm of your year look?  How will you spend the holidays?  How will you balance work and leisure and vacations?  And an even bigger picture question, what will you give your lives to?  How will you invest your life, in terms of work and career?  That touches on the bigger question of…

3) Meaning.

What will all this mean?  What will getting married mean to you? Individually and as a couple?  Often, little issues become big issues because there are underlying issues as stake in conflict and in the process of sorting things out at the start of marriage.  Tim Keller in the book The Meaning of Marriage describes a dynamic that a lot of couples face today: a deep disillusionment about marriage, on one hand, and a deep hope or expectation about marriage at the same time.  We can bring a lot of unspoken, deep rooted fears, hurts and hopes to marriage and a few weeks of pre-marital counseling often just touches the surface of them.  Having doubts, second thoughts, anxiety about marriage can be really For Christians, marriage is a symbol of the relationship of Christ and the church; what will that look like for us?

4) Identity.

Who am I now as a married person?  What will be different now?  What will our marriage be?  Even couples that have been together for years can be shaken by the new realities and identity of being married. Where do I end? and where do we begin?  What issues are mine? What issues are ours?  What does the role of being your husband, or wife look like?  Who will I be to you? Will it be what we saw modeled and defined by our parents or will we create something different?

5) Communication and conflict resolution.

Listening well, expressing empathy, giving honest feedback.  Make it a habit to give honest feedback, even if it’s hard and risks conflict.  The pain of feedback early on is much less than the pain of going along and being less than honest and the whole truth coming out later.  Develop language or a ritual of apology, making amends, forgiving and reconciling.  Learn how to support each other during stress and struggle vs. fixing them.  Learn how to ask for help and what you want.  Be assertive and don’t just give in and comply in order to collaborate and create agreements and solutions that work for both of you.

6) Sex. 

Sexual intimacy ideally is a natural expression of the emotional and spiritual intimacy you experience.  It is also something that develops and grows.  Address early on (get help if necessary) struggles, in order to get off to a good start.  Whether you wait for marriage to be sexually intimate or have been prior to marriage, the transition in to marriage and all the changes mentioned above can make this area difficult.  It can be hard to talk about, something that ought to help you feel closer becoming something that pushes you apart. Hurt, rejection, “failure”, anxiety, tension, avoidance, frustration, impatience, feeling used can all quickly enter in to derail this vital area of marital happiness and satisfaction.

7) Stress.

Related to #5.  As a couple, it will help to communicate about health and unhealthy ways to cope and manage stress (and busyness).  Stress often impairs or kills empathy.  Be vigilant at deal with it and other gremlins, like unfair fighting, selfishness, dishonesty.  One of the couples I worked with said it well in describing their struggles: “We had lost our ability to console each other.” Protect that, it’s one of the best things about being married, having someone who can console and support and be there for you.  If not, the person who you turned to for support and comfort can easily become the one who causes hurt and stress.

What do you think?  Is there another area that you would add for newly married couples to pay attention to?

 

Smart People Anxiety

  One of the great things about working and living in Portlandia is the people.

I’ve found Portland is kind of a mecca for some of my favorite types of people: creatives and artists.

I enjoy meeting with folks who are insightful, thoughtful, compassionate, those who sometimes are slow to speak outside the counseling office because they want their words to be well-considered. Often they are introverted but not all. Many are grad school students at the seminary, involved in leadership or ministry. They care deeply about people, often very empathetic and authentic. They inspire me because they see things beyond the surface. Their everyday walking around, thoughts are art. I’d love to read their memoirs or journals. They fascinate me.

The downside though is often creatives and artists because of the way they see the world and the depths to which they think and process things can really struggle with anxiety and depression.

They have high highs and low lows. They quickly can go from “Everything is awesome to everything has gone to hell”. (They’d describe this much better)

They get paralyzed by their introspection

Overwhelmed by the intensity or the changes of their emotions

They can feel isolated and misunderstood.

And frustrated at feeling out of control.

If you add, for many of my clients and grad students, being devote in their faith; they can be vulnerable to another layer of anxiety around believing they are not doing enough for God or for others.

For example, they may feel overwhelmed at the enormity of a social justice issue, at how big the problem is or how much work and changes needs to be done in that area. And they can have a hard time turn off or turning down how concerned or troubled they are about the issue.

When I see this, one thing I tell them is they are suffering from what I call “Smart people anxiety”.

It’s not the simple, garden-variety anxiety or depression – it’s complicated!

Strong thinkers are strong feelers.

There’s levels and layers to their anxiety!

Their anxiety doesn’t just get triggered and then follow one railroad track to a catastrophic ending.

Their anxiety branches off in multiple and elaborate permutations that quickly can overwhelm them.

It becomes a huge suffocating mess to untangle.

Because of how creative and thoughtful and imaginative they are.

Another phrase I use as way of talking and exploring this other than “smart people anxiety” is “Inception level anxiety” or “Inceptionesque anxiety”.

Inception being the movie directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCarprio.

Inception is about a team of people that get hired to create dreams and implant new realities and memories into their targets. A young member of their team played by Ellen Paige has a talent for creating very realistic elaborate dreams. The more realistic the dream world and images she creates, the greater the chances at their deception, their inception, will work.

In the movie, with a challenging target, they attempt to plant a dream, within a dream, within a dream. The problem is the deeper they go the harder it is to distinguish the dreams from reality.

For artists and creative, I think this is a part of what makes their anxiety or depression harder to untangle and treat. They can quickly build elaborate constructs, metaphors, inner worlds and word pictures for what they are going through. We all do this when we go through struggles and experiences, we try to make meaning, to make sense of things. Creatives can overdo this. They can attach so much meaning and attach so many different things to their stressors and triggers; they don’t just catastrophize, they globalize. What might be, what it might mean, quickly becomes reality.

Thing is, it often isn’t completely true, or true at all. Because it might mean something doesn’t mean that is the best or truest interpretation to hold. Just because it feels, or seems real, doesn’t mean it is.

Here’s a few things that the team from Inception did that might help you if you struggle with this type of anxiety:

  • They set limits. When one of their team went down into the psyche, into the dream state, of their target they set alarms to pull them out of the dream. This prevents them from getting trapped in the dream and disconnected from reality forever. If you struggle with rumination and worry you can set limits too. You can literally set an alarm, a time limit, just like the Inception team to remind you to get out of your head and go do something else. You set limits by having a designated space to worry. You can journal. The thoughts can seem a while lot smaller on a page, and you can literally close the book on them when you write them down. Journalling also slows you’re racing thoughts down because we usually can’t write as fast our thoughts. You can also set limits by having boundaries on the types of conten, and how negative it is, that you allow as input or what you create and dwell on. For example, what types of music, media, news, people – and how much and how long – you expose yourself to.
  • They had a totem. Each member of the team had a something to hold, something with someone weight, that they could “carry” with them down into the dream to root them to reality and help them distinguish what was real and what was a dream. DiCaprio’s character had a top that he kept in his pocket and held onto. For folks struggling with the anxiety of quitting tobacco, they often use a totem of their own, a “worry stone” to help them focus on the present and work through a period of craving. For folks with this type of anxiety, focusing on what’s present, being mindful, focusing on things external to them instead of their thoughts (diaphragmatic breathing and exercise help), focusing on their core beliefs, what’s most important, what they know to be true, instead of thinking too far ahead or focusing on their ruminations and visualizations can be very helpful. These are a few ways of grounding themselves and reconnecting with reality.
  • They didn’t do the work alone. DiCaprio’s character, because of his past, lost objectivity. He started to struggle with what was real. It made him vulnerable to making selfish, poor choices that comprised the team’s mission. His past was haunting him. He needed the others on his team, especially Paige, to keep him on track.

If you’re a creative or introvert, struggling with how powerful your anxiety or depression can be, I hope this post will encourage you to use your powers of insight and imagination “for good”.
Watch here on the blog for more posts on anxiety and depression.

In the meantime, what do you think? If you’ve seen the movie, anything you’d add?

And, most importantly, anything you’ll do with this?

 

 

 

Starting in the face of fear and perfectionism

Here’s a post mostly for my counselor friends who are building their practice or platform. But it’ll apply to anyone wanting to start something, like my blogging and writing friends, and my friends who are on the verge of making a change or procrastinating.

Here’s a pic of my blog stats for the past few months.
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Didn’t really know what to expect. I said a little bit about what I’ve learned in the audio blog this past week.
The first month I had 155 visitors. In June, 293. And so far in July, 613. So doubling each month. I’m not sure that’ll continue but it’s encouraging.

One thing that surprised me: in the six years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve never had anything I’ve written or posted be shared more than 4-5 times. And I post a lot! But in the past three months I’ve blogged about 25 times and half of those posts have been shared at least 10 times. A few have even been shared more than 40 times. What I blog about isn’t much different than what those FB posts were but I guess blogging and blog reading is different. My daughter says one reason is FB readers are just quickly scrolling through their feed at different places and times of the day where they may not have the time to read, engage or share. That makes sense.

I’ve also learned this since starting:
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You can’t grow, learn, improve, achieve what you want, get to where you want to go unless or until you start.
So you might as well begin.

Just start.

Starting before you’re ready is a great antidote to perfectionism because it exposes the lies perfectionism fills your mind with.
The lies that something bad will happen, that you’ll be rejected, criticized, embarrasses.
Maybe you will feel that little but what I’ve learned is that you’ll survive; the flaws and mistakes, imperfections, won’t kill you.
And people are more encouraging and supportive than you imagined.

Thanks for reading my blog so far.
If you are a baby counselor or aspiring writer like me, I hope you are building your platform and encourage you to start your own blog.
I’m also drawing inspiration from this workbook and am thinking about forming a monthly Google Hangout group to work through it together. Let me know if you are interested in joining.

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How stress affects your parenting

 One of the best things that can really help with healthy parenting and effective parenting is dealing with your stress.

Because it doesn’t matter what parenting books or DVDs you watch – what parenting podcast or blog you listen to or read- if you’re swimming in stress,  you’re not going to be as effective as you could be because stress will impair you.

These different ways stress can affect you as a parent often overlap and connect and because they’re overlapping and connected stress can easily snowball and overwhelm you. When you add the kids acting out in reaction to your stress – that becomes a gnarly vicious cycle.

1) Stress disconnects you from your best self.  Stress is useful, it creates energy to do what you need to do. Too much, for too long, takes a toll; the rest of this list details how.

2) Stress is distracting and prevents you from being focused and present. You aren’t as attentive. And that can lead to mistakes, inefficiency, frustration, tasks taking longer than you wanted, forgetfulness or even neglect.

3) Stress is draining and exhausting.  It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy when you’re in it so you can’t bring that energy that you need to your kids.

4) Stress makes you vulnerable to resentment and bitterness. Because it’s draining on and that makes everything harder you can start to feel trapped.  When you’re under stress you can be vulnerable sacrificing even more than is healthy for the good of your kids.  In the effort to be a great mom or dad in the short term, things can backfire and fall apart in the long run with undealt-with stress. 

5) Stress makes you reactive and feel out of control.  Stress speeds up your thinking, too much and it can also distort your thinking.  Stress is the triggered fight-or-flight response, it makes you reactive and vulnerable to over-reacting with your kids.

6) Stress makes you vulnerable to inconsistently enforcing boundaries, limits and consequences.  It’s tough to stick to your guns and stay consistent with discipline and consequences. Stress breaks down your resolve and patience. It makes short cuts tempting.

7) Stress can make you feel guilty in a few ways.  Besides feeling guilty for the previous reactions to stress, under stress you may not be experiencing the joy of parenting and as a mom (or dad) you’re “supposed to” have joy as a mom. And what kind of a mom would you be to not enjoy your children?  Now, I don’t believe that and you probably don’t either sitting on the computer or reading on your phone, you can see that cognitive distortion clearly.  But in the middle of a bad day, a nightmare trip to the grocery store or in the middle of another sleepless night that type of thinking seems very real and true.

8) Stress triggers and perpetuates anxiety and depression if you are vulnerable to it or have it.

9) Stress can also trigger self-medicating with addictions or acting out.

10) Stress can affect your sleep and and make you sleep deprived (or even more sleep deprived). And the stress and problems of sleep deprivation are a whole other burden to deal with. I’ll certainly blogging more about sleep later.

11) Stress can make you question your faith. In yourself and in God.  In yourself because it makes you uncertain and unsteady, it shakes your confidence, makes you feel incompetence, feel like quitting or running away.  It can shake your faith because it can make you feel alone and isolated, disconnected and abandoned.

These are some ways that stress makes parenting harder. I’m guessing there are others you might add or are going through. When you are under stress which of the ways above does stress affect your parenting?

Despite all that, I hope this will encourage you to see that often the “problem” isn’t you, or isn’t the kids, often the “problem” is stress. I hope thinking through this list helps untangle the complexity of the different consequences of stress. And inspires you to do what you need to do to address it and take care of yourself.

Remember, sometimes taking care of yourself is not really doing more or adding one more to-do to your already overfull plate; taking care of yourself may mean just giving yourself permission to ask for help, accept help, to let people see your need and let people in to help.

I’ll be posting ways of managing your stress in the future.

In the meantime, a few more questions: what’s causing your stress right now?

Is it low, medium or high?

Getting worse, staying the same or getting better?

What’s one thing you could start doing – something you’re in control of, something you can concretely do differently –  that would help with your stress?

 

10 Obvious-but-we’re-in-counseling-because-we-forgot Marriage Facts

Ten obvious-but-we’re-in-counseling-because-we-forgot Marriage Facts.

Fact #1 : Your spouse is different than you. They just are.

Fact #2: What you believe about those differences and how you react/respond will make or break your marriage.

Fact #3: Your spouse is an adult. You can’t control him or her. The moments you forget this you give yourself permission to weaken your marriage.

Fact #4: Spending time doing fun stuff together and having awesome uninterrupted conversations were two key things that made you say “Hey, we should, like totally, do this together for the rest of our lives!” That and the kissing. (Oh yes, the kissing! More on that later)

Fact #5: You married your spouse because of the strengths and qualities you admired in them, fixating on their weaknesses will make you doubt that decision. If you mentally tear down your spouse, because you are one, you tear yourself down. And it’s not very sexy.

Fact #6: Your spouse is your best friend. Don’t be mean to your best friend.

Fact #7: Honesty is still the best policy. Remember when finally finding someone to be completely open and honest with felt so good? Don’t go back into hiding.

Fact #8 Being adult doesn’t mean being grumpy. Have fun. Simple, obvious, not easy. Make space for it. Ruthlessly deal with stress and busyness. “Neglect” and sacrifice other things and priorities for your spouse, like you used to.

Fact #9 Sex is good. So much to say here. Don’t make excuses. Find your way back to each other, under the sheets.  Whatever takes away or has taken away the longing, desire and urgency – address it. Maturity and the kids’ schedules and getting old together doesn’t mean losing creativity, fun and playfulness. Chase each other around the house even if only metaphorically and behind closed doors and that brief window of time on your weekly calendars.

Fact #10 Marriage is not just about you and your unmet needs.  Not to discount your needs or happiness but remember your purpose, your center.  For me and Julie, it’s our faith and relationships with God. Under stress and conflict and overwhelm it’s easy to go into survival mode.
Remember that you had dreams, purpose, mission, something beyond yourself when you started your life together, something beyond just the two of you.

Remembering this humbles me, makes me feel grateful to have such an amazing spouse. It makes me feel so blessed. It reminds me I’m forgiven and I can forgive, small and big things.

When you step back and consider this, the things that divide you get smaller. And the things that brought you together, that keep you together and will see you through, come back in and empower you to continue to love each other.

Find your way back.

It’s worth it.

10 reactions people have to getting caught in their porn use

I wrote this list of reactions 10 reactions people have to getting caught in their porn use.
It struck me how similar it is to getting caught in an affair.

I’ve added a little more detail than the initial list I posted then.

Andee Zomerman saw this when I posted it on Facebook and she invited me on her local radio show The Rose City Forum to talk more about the list and the problem of porn. You can listen to the podcast here. I really appreciate Andee’s willingness to increase awareness of the problem on her show. (If you listen, you’ll see talking “about” porn and answering questions is outside my comfort zone. I’m much more comfortable asking the questions and listening in sessions.)

1) Lie – when porn use first comes to light, what’s you see is usually just the tip of the iceberg. And anyone cheating or using porn has been lying to you and themselves for awhile usually.  Porn is just a symptom, dealing with the problem is not just about stopping the behavior but getting the many factors that feed it. 

 

2) Minimize – the person caught will usually just admit to what they can’t deny, cover up or explain away. They’ll only fess up to what you have the the evidence on. And even with evidence, they may try to make you crazy and question your ability to see the evidence for what it is. They will also minimize or excuse and rationalize their behavior.  They will also try to minimize the damage it has done to themselves and those around them. 

3) Get angry, attack back – when backed into a corner and with the evidence mounting they may try to attack you, throw you off with their anger and cross-complaining.  If you tend to avoid conflict, they may try to use anger and intimidation to scare you and get you to back off and back down. Sometimes, the anger stems from fear. Fear of being found out, from all the truth of what they’ve worked so hard to hide and manage coming out. Fear of hurting you. Fear of what you will do. Fear of disappointing you. Fear of seeing the pain in your eyes. Fear of what they’ve been afraid of, for so long, coming true. Fear of being rejected and alone. So, sometimes that anger, that comes out, is really anger at themself for what they’ve done to the one they love.

4) Get depressed – this may be genuine but often more in a shame-based manipulative way to get you to not be hard on them and leave them alone.  This can look like playing a victim. And don’t get me wrong, very often those trapped in porn are in a very real and significant ways victims. Thing is, it is extremely difficult (maybe impossible, at first) to hold both the role of having healthy boundaries and being angry enough to confront them with the truth and break through the denial and lies, and the role of the empathetic, understanding supportive spouse, at the same time. That is why when porn use comes out it relationship, it can be helpful to not only have couples counseling but individual counseling support for the roller coaster of emotions that come out.

5) Blame – similar to getting angry but worth a separate note. Blame is making you the reason for their behavior. How what you do and say, or don’t do and say caused them to cheat or to view porn.  “If you were more interested in sex. If you weren’t so unavailable. If you hadn’t gained so much weight. I wouldn’t be tempted to use porn.” 

6) Get worse – this one is a big one, I’ve heard this a lot. Telling the truth is risky, often confronting someone about an affair or porn the offended person is afraid of the other person’s behavior getting worse. They are worried if they set boundaries, like a temporary separation, their spouse or partner will cheat more, get more self-destructive. If they set boundaries about intimacy, they will escalate and instead of viewing porn they will start going to strip clubs, or it’ll give them more of reason to turn to the other person for solace and intimacy or worse. And, the thing is, it’s true, they may. But it if they chose to make things worse instead of better it reveals a lot about their heart, commitment and willingness to change.

7) Leave, give up – similar to 6. Another fear of confrontation is that the person caught will just not want to make the effort to change and leave the marriage or relationship. Sometimes the pain of being alone seems worse than the pain of being cheated on.  After years of not being unsuccessful at breaking free from porn, it is easy to feel hopeless to change. Sometimes the pain and devestation that has occurred is overwhelming, instead of facing it and taking responsibility, running away seems like a much easier choice. 

8) Scramble to “get better” – sometimes someone gets caught and it is a bit of a wake up call. Thing is, just focusing on behavior, getting filters, Open DNS, accountability software, etc. doesn’t address the root issues. Patrick Carnes describes this as a first order change. Changing because they “should” or “have to”. These can be good, wise first steps but long-term recovery requires more.

9) Confess – disclosure is a start, taking responsibility, telling the truth and the whole truth, without distortion and minimization. But confession is not enough. Confession without action, a plan, support and accountability can just perpetuate the problem, repeat the cycle of best intentions, false starts, broken promises and failure.

10) Repent – starting recovery. This is moving from 1st order change to more internalized motivations for change, working on changing on the inside as well as the outside. Actions speak louder than words in restoring trust and relationship.

Listening back to the podcast and re-reading this list I realized this can come across as harsh, not very accepting or compassionate towards folks struggling with porn.  I have lots of empathy for those caught. I understand. They are who have spent most of the past 12 years sitting with and counseling. I will write another blog for resources for recovery soon.

What would you add to the list?

How does it strike you?

 

 

One of the best things about self-care

One of the best things about self-care is taking the time when it seems like you don’t have the time helps you realize you do.
You do when you make the right choices about what’s most important.
And not waiting until you have permission, giving it to yourself, is a great way of breaking free of feeling so out of control or controlled by circumstances and the expectations of others.

How do you know if counseling will help? Read this to your husband if you aren’t sure.

One way to decide if counseling would be helpful vs going out for coffee or a date night is when the way you talk (or don’t talk) about your problems becomes the problem, when trying to talk drives you further apart, not closer.

When communication breaks down it can be so frustrating for both husbands and wives. I wrote this too for guys who aren’t sure if counseling would help or be worth it.  

Guys,

What if I told you there was a place you could take your wife and you could talk calmly and efficiently and come to agreements about your conflicts.  

A place where your need to think things through inside before replying outloud would be honored and uninterrupted. 

 A place where you would listen to each to other and find the words to understand each other and feel validated and heard.  

You wouldn’t have to numb or shut off your emotions but could express them because you’d learn to contain them and not be overwhelmed.  

A place where the stress of the present doesn’t steal away the joys of the past or the hope for the future. 

There might be some crying involved but it would only take an hour and you’d leave as friends or at least with the hope that you might be again someday?

That it may seem like weakness but to your spouse it’d be the most courageous thing you could do for her.

And really not just for her but for the both of you. 

What if I told you it could make all the difference. 

Would you go?

Portland and Vancouver area Christian Counseling resources

I get questions about counseling in my inbox sometimes.

Here are some local Christian counseling recommendations and resources.

First of all, I recommend my friends at A New Day Counseling Center which is on the campus of Western  Seminary. We have a team of counselors and psychologists that work with a variety of concerns and also accept different types of insurance.

We also have student interns that receive excellent supervision and can see folks for $20 a session.

Here are a few counselors and counseling clinics I recommend.

Feel free to recommend others below. Apologies to anyone I’ve left off.

For marriage counseling:

Jason Wilkinson at Wellspace Counseling. This is an interview I did with Jason.

Alan Rutherford sees individuals and couples. My wife and I enjoyed and benefited from a Marriage class Alan did for Imago Dei Community.

Roxie Sprick at Gresham Family Counseling.

In town, Nate Bagley and Bridge City Counseling

In Sandy/Gresham Dave and Hollis at River Ridge Counseling

On the west side, Aaron at Discover Counseling

In Clackamas, Cornerstone Clinical and Connie at Partners in Hope

In Springfield, Scott Waters at Veritas Community Counseling.  Here is an interview on marriage counseling with Scott.

In Vancouver, Charis Counseling and Fir Crest Behavioral Health.

Julia Garrison at Garrison Counseling Services. This is an interview I did with Julia.

In Battleground, Parkway Counseling. 

When looking for a counselor, I recommend reading the info and bios at the counseling center’s website for the areas they specialize in, their experience, their description of their approach to counseling, and see if it resonates with you.  You can also call their office usually to ask questions to help you decide.

These days many counselors do telehealth (online video) sessions so you can meet with counselors who are not in your immediate area or city. You will need to schedule with a counselor who is licensed in the state you live in.

Some folks ask me if there are counselors I recommend at Kaiser. Since I don’t work in the mental health department there I recommend folks with KP insurance make an intake appointment and ask to be assigned to a Christian counselor.  Sometimes, KP members are able to get an external referral to clinics outside the KP offices. I think clinics like Western Psychological Services may take these referrals and you might be able to find a Christian provider there.

Briefly, I’ll say here, if you are a Christian you don’t always have to have a Christian counselor to benefit from counseling. I’ll probably blog more about why that’s true here. If you’ve found that to be true for you, I invite you to comment about your experience in the comments.

I often recommend support groups, they can be extremely helpful in recovery, healing, and making difficult changes.

Divorce Care has a website with good information and several support groups locally and nationally. It is also helpful for couples and families that are going through a separation.

Celebrate Recovery also has several groups that meet at churches in the area. It is helpful for a variety of issues.

Refuge at Imago Dei Community in Portland meets on Mon evenings. Their website also has a list of Christian counselors.

Pure Life Alliance has groups for men and women struggling with porn and sexual addiction. They also offer groups for spouses and significant others that have been hurt by their partner’s struggle.

Here’s a website I recommend frequently as well

Cloudtownsend.com – I recommend their books on Boundaries all the time, their video advice channels cover many topics related to relationships, emotional health, etc. They also have Q&A replies to many questions related to mental health. I really appreciate their perspectives on integrating faith and psychology.