Portland Christian counselors commit ourselves to delivering excellent clinical services above all else. This means we focus primarily on eliminating your problems and complaints by increasing your self-awareness. Helping you understand yourself in expanded ways results in making better choices for your life and the important relationships within it. Our approach comes out of the conviction that God desires good, sound mental and emotional health for all of us. We believe that a healthy and whole person is required for spiritual maturity and that modern psychology significantly contributes to achieving that health. It would be putting the cart before the horse if we were to focus on spiritual concerns when your difficulties originate on a simpler level. Because of this strong conviction we also work effectively with persons who do not share the Christian faith.

What distinguishes the therapists at Portland Christian Counseling from others is that all of us received our psychological training at seminaries. We each had to study and learn everything required for secular therapy but in addition were formally trained along theological lines. This training permits us to discern the difference between psychological and spiritual issues and to easily converse with you about matters of your faith.

Many patients simply feel more comfortable working with a therapist who shares the Christian faith. But comfort aside, it remains important to work with a therapist who has meaningfully wrestled with the complex issues of the integration of Christian faith and psychology. Each of us wanted to make such challenges an official part of our learning and training.

Therapists at Portland Christian Counseling share a commitment to grace-centered, yet effective, therapy. Our job isn't to condemn you or shame and coerce you into Godly ways of living. We believe you are probably too condemning of yourself already and that there are other, more appropriate and less expensive, resources about how to live in a Christ-like manner.

Our purpose is to help you understand and remove those obstacles that prevent you from living well. We acknowledge that you may be caught in some unhealthy or unwanted behaviors and we do address those directly but, we do not believe you give yourself the best chance at meaningful change if you are buried under massive amounts of guilt and shame. Many of our patients (and a couple of therapists) have come from homes where only the angry, wrathful side of God was known. We understand that this is a distortion of God's true character and it is important for you to stop experiencing condemnation and start receiving understanding, compassion, and helpful direction (maybe for the first time ever!).