Kristi and I (Bill) have been offering Christian psychotherapy in Irvine, CA since 1987, Kristi as a Marriage and Family Therapist and myself as a Psychologist.
In psychotherapy we help people to overcome depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviors, and relationship conflicts. As part of the therapy process we can help people to grow in the grace of Christ through spiritual conversation, meditation on Scripture, prayer, and other spiritual disciplines.
Let me briefly explain our view of how the psychotherapy process. Imagine that you were to meet with me and ask me, “Bill, how can you (or Kristi) help me?”
“You’ll get help when you join God and me in caring for you.”
Jesus is the “Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6) so my goal is to be “Christ’s Ambassador” (2 Corinthians 5:20) for you, connecting you with God’s grace and truth. This begins with offering you compassion and encouragement. In addition you will need help learning how you can set aside your denial mechanisms, unhealthy coping behaviors, and resistances so that you can develop healthy relationships centered in God’s grace and truth.
“Growth is a process.”
Overcoming your struggles is a developmental process that often requires getting help with childhood wounds or unmet needs. To mature on the inside you’ll need to make incremental changes in areas like learning to trust, sharing deep feelings, internalizing comfort and affirmation, developing self-identity, setting boundaries, giving and receiving forgiveness, overcoming harmful attitudes and behavior, applying wisdom in real life challenges, discovering and using your unique gifts, and rejoicing in opportunities to give yourself away in love to God and other people.
“You need to be motivated to change.”
Therapy outcome research shows that client motivation is key to successful treatment. We have seen this to be true, as our clients who have been most helped supplemented their therapy with things like…
· Participating in a 12 Step recovery program or church support group
· Learning how to use spiritual disciplines
· Meeting regularly with a prayer partner, soul friend, or sponsor
· Keeping a journal to express their emotions and prayers
· Reading books or articles related to the reason they’re in therapy
· Serving the poor and needy through their local church
“Your opportunity is to strengthen your trust in Christ.”
If you want Scripture and prayer to be a part of the therapy process we are prepared to offer that to help you. Over the years many of our clients have benefited greatly from a variety of spiritual interventions that we can use like…
· Praying together about a struggle you’re having
· Learning how to use Scripture to Abide in Prayer
· Using Breath Prayers (e.g., for anxiety) and other exercises from our Spiritual Disciplines List
· Participating in a time of healing prayer (e.g., for a painful memory)
When psychotherapy is complete we would hope for you to be healed and matured to the point that you could get your personal needs met from friends, your local church, and, most importantly, in your relationship with God. And we’d thrill to see you overflowing with God’s love to others!
If you’re a pastor, pastor’s wife, missionary, or other active ministry leader we can offer you Christian psychotherapy through Soul Shepherding, our nonprofit ministry. (Bill works full time for this ministry and Kristi is part time.)
Each of us have a few hours a week to offer Christian psychotherapy for people who are not in pastors or ministry leaders through Christian Soul Care, Inc.
