Faith-integrated counseling
Licensed therapy, with your faith in the room rather than left at the door. It is there as much or as little as you want it, and nothing here requires you to be sure of what you believe.
Our office, on Shoal Creek across from Pease Park. Sessions here or virtually, anywhere in Texas.
Most people searching for this have already run into one of two versions of the wrong fit. A therapist who treats faith as a symptom, or a counselor who treats therapy as a detour from faith. Neither is what this is.
You want somebody who will not need the whole thing explained, or quietly graded.
Something has happened and prayer alone has not moved it, and that has started to mean something you did not want it to mean.
Your faith is part of the problem as well as part of the answer, and both of those are true at once.
You are further out than you used to be, and you are not ready to call that anything yet.
Your church has been good to you, and this is still not something you can take there.
Any of those is an ordinary reason to book. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. These five are plausible rather than real. Replace them with what people actually say when faith is the reason they chose us.
We chose the name Decades for both halves: the years behind you, and the years still ahead. What you have been through is real. It does not get to write the rest of the story.
You set how much faith is in the room, and you can change your mind later.
Nobody is going to test you on doctrine, and nobody is going to treat belief as the thing to get past.
Tell us what you are dealing withThe consultation. Twenty free minutes. You say what is going on and what part faith plays in it, and we work out whether this is the right place and who fits. It ends in a recommendation, not an assignment.
The first sessions. History and orientation, including the religious history, because where a belief came from behaves differently from what it says.
After that. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. What genuinely happens next, and specifically how a clinician asks how much faith a client wants in the room without turning it into a test.
Ellen Johnson
MA, LPC | Clinical Director
This is licensed clinical therapy that takes faith seriously. It is not pastoral counseling, it does not replace what your church does, and it is not a route to anybody's conclusion about what you should believe.
Nobody here will introduce faith into a session. You take it there, or it stays out, and either is fine. What you keep and what you put down is yours to decide.
Who sends people here
Pastors and care teams refer people here regularly, and we work closely with the care team at Austin Ridge. Whether you came from a church or found this on your own, what you say in this room does not go back to anybody, including confirmation that you came.
If it is intimacy in a Christian marriage: Christian sex therapyChurches whose care teams send people here include Austin Ridge, The Austin Stone, Providence, The Well, Red Rock Austin, All Saints, The Vine, Riverbend and Gateway.
The methods, and where they fit. ELLEN WE NEED YOUR INPUT HERE. Does anybody hold formal training in faith-integrated clinical work, as distinct from personally sharing a faith? A reader who chose this page will assume the second, so if it is true it is the strongest thing this page can say.
If you are getting married: Christian premarital counselingIf you are a pastor or care team referring somebody: for churchesNot sure which fits? Ask us on a free consultationThis is a clinical practice first, and that is the point rather than a caveat. Faith is not the lens everything gets read through here, it is something a client can bring with them and have taken seriously. That is also why church care teams across Austin are willing to refer.
No. The practice works with people of any faith and none, and this page exists because some people want faith in the room rather than because anybody is asked to hold one. Nobody is asked to give one up either.
No, and the difference matters. This is licensed clinical therapy delivered by people who take faith seriously. Pastoral and biblical counseling are their own things, offered by churches, and they are not a substitute for each other. Plenty of people do both.
That is one of the more common reasons people come to this page, and it is not something to sort out before you arrive. Nobody here has a preferred answer for where you land.
Some of the team do. It is not what makes the work good, and it is not something anybody brings into a session. Faith comes into the room when you take it there, and not before. This practice is clinical first, and that is deliberate.
No. Even where a pastor or care team referred you, nothing goes back to them, including whether you booked at all. That holds whoever sent you.
Appointments Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm, in person in Central Austin (across from Pease Park) or virtually across Texas. Weekends are sometimes available, so please ask if that works better for you.
No. The practice does not bill insurance directly. We can check your out-of-network benefits for you, by hand, before you commit to anything.
Twenty free minutes, and no part of it requires you to have worked out what you believe first. You say what is going on, we tell you honestly whether this is the right place, and you decide from there.
Book a free consultationPick a time that suits you, sometimes as early as today.
We talk through what would help, and what it would take.
You leave with a recommendation to work with someone on our team, or a referral to another resource in the area. Either way, you won't be back at square one.
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