Considering Acorn Counseling?
Here are common questions about counseling and christian evidence based counseling.
Are you guys Christian?
Our entire staff believe that Jesus is the Son of God described in the Bible, born of Mary, a virgin, fully God and fully Man. We believe salvation is through faith alone. The Bible is the Word of God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training. The principles of our faith assist with all our clients, whether they are Christians or not.
What if I’m not a Christian or don’t want to integrate that into my counseling?
Great question! You are the best person to make choices about your life. In the intake, let us know your world view. We will do our best to integrate it into your counseling. If the differences between your world view and ours are marked, we talk through it. Most of the time, in these situations, we move to secular counseling strategies with lots of communication about how to integrate your worldview into your daily habits and your mental health.
What does it mean to be evidence based?
Our staff of highly trained therapists work to stay up on the latest research. Acorn has specialists in family therapy, play therapy, couples therapy, etc. While we like the latest and greatest new treatments, we focus most of our time on techniques and products with lots of research on their effectiveness.
Can my family be involved?
Absolutely! Families, particularly for minors, are integral to the way we practice. Bringing in important members of your family only deepens your treatment. We work to strengthen support systems for all clients.
Won’t you tell me what to do?
No! You are in the best position to make your own decisions, but we provide information, support, and ideas to support your goals in therapy. Together, we talk about the positives and negatives of different choices and how to integrate your belief system into their choices. Ongoing conversations about suggestions, homework, and worldviews keep us on target to meeting goals, while molding them to your life, culture and beliefs.
What about medication?
We don’t medicate or suggest medications, as we are not physicians. Counseling focuses on learning about your life and lifestyle, helping you to identify changes that are necessary and referring to competent professionals. Sometimes, you might ask us how others have handled certain issues or whether a medication is common. We might even find great research to share, but we leave medicating to others.
What is a Treatment Team?
We are not all experts on all areas of counseling. We use a particular approach called treatment teams for complex problems. Our clinicians rely on each other to help find resources and promote change in our families through education and referrals. Even if the client or client family never meets the other members of the team–peer review, joint learning and support makes treatment with one of our counselors more effective. At times we do have to refer out for specific services. At those times, we try to make a warm handoff to preserve continuity of care.
Do you work with the LGBTQ community?
Of course! We work with clients from many backgrounds.