Types of Counseling at Imagine Ministries
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Individual Counseling
Coping with addictions, trauma, abuse, depression, anxiety, grief or loss, and other issues. We help people overcome emotional blockages so they can fulfill their potential and lead lives of constructive wholeness. This includes teenagers.
For individuals seeking counseling from Imagine, please click on the button below to access our client information packet. Please fill out these forms and bring with you to your first counseling session.
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Marriage and Family Counseling
Healing relational wounds and providing practical tools to help couples or families strengthen bonds and develop mature commitment in the face of pressure, stress, and unexpected trauma. For married couples seeking marriage counseling from Imagine, please click on the button below to access our couples information packet. Please fill out these forms and bring with you to your first counseling session.
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Premarital Counseling
Surfacing potential problems or hidden expectations and providing practical tools to grow the relationship and establish strong foundations in the areas of communication, intimacy, conflict resolution, roles, and spiritual formation.
For engaged couples seeking premarital counseling from Imagine, please click on the button below to access our premarital information packet. Please fill out these forms and bring with you to your first counseling session.
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When You Come to Imagine Ministries for Help
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The work of imagine is supported by fees and donations. Whether you are receiving spiritual direction or counseling we ask for a fee. However, we will turn no one away who the Lord has sent for ministry, that is truly unable to pay.
To help you, we offer some guidelines:
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If you are coming for inner healing, spiritual direction, marriage and family counseling or coaching, we ask for a base fee of $80 per session for individuals and $95 per session for couples (generally 1.5 hours for both). WE HAVE A SLIDING FEE SCALE IF IT IS MORE THAN YOUR BUDGET CAN HANDLE. We observe the honor system. We accept cash, checks, money orders, and PayPal, but no credit or debit cards.
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We understand that lives are busy, and unexpected problems or events can occasionally prevent you from keeping an appointment you have scheduled with us. But please note: If you don’t notify us to cancel at least 12 hours before your appointment time, we must bill you for the missed appointment. We will take extenuating circumstances such as illness, car problems or last minute work schedule changes into consideration. Remember, an appointment you miss without telling us is one we could have offered to someone else looking for help through a crisis or problem.
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It is also our policy that you pay the fee after each counseling/spiritual direction session. However, if you forget, please send your payment to our mailing address before the next appointment.
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Please make checks payable to “imagine” not “Kit McDermott” or “Tricia McDermott.” Thank you.
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COUNSELING AGREEMENT: I understand that counseling is aimed at helping me learn and apply sound principles and practices to confront my problems. I agree to enter into this counseling relationship; to do my part to change and grow; and to pay the fee for each session attended.
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Nine Decisions You Need to Make
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- THE DECISION TO BE WELL: While Christian counseling and healing ultimately depend on the movement of the Holy Spirit, it is also true that you have a crucial part to play in the process. You must commit to doing what it takes to heal and get well. If your will is not completely in the effort, no matter how skilled or diligent the counselor, you will only go as far as you decide.
- THE DECISION TO FACE PAIN: In the course of getting well, you have to decide that you will face the pain necessary to heal. If you want to avoid the pain, you will only waste your time and that of the counselor. There will be struggles to face in the forms of grief, anger, guilt and shame, but you will not face them alone. Jesus will walk with you as will we. Exposing the pain begins the healing process. Walking through suffering with Christ leads to the treasures of faith, hope and maturity (Romans 5:1-5; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 1:6-7
- THE DECISION TO FACE FEAR: Along with facing pain, you will also have to face what you are afraid of. It could be hidden sin that makes you ashamed. It could be the fear of going through trauma again. Maybe you are afraid of being abandoned and rejected. It could be the fear of facing the responsibility of being well. Whatever the source of the fear, it has to be faced so that it is not the LORD of your life, but that Jesus is. Fear cripples; facing it in Christ’s Presence leads to freedom (Ps. 27:1, 56:3; Is. 41:10; Mk. 5:36; Jn. 14:27; He. 13:6; 1 Jn. 4:18).
- THE DECISION TO GIVE TIME: Emotional or spiritual healing for most does not happen overnight. There are no quick fixes or magic bullets. You must have patience and perseverance to allow the Holy Spirit time to heal you as He chooses. He will not force progress faster than you are willing to embrace. Settle in your heart the commitment to take whatever time is necessary to let the LORD free you from what binds and afflicts (Ps. 40:1-4). Counseling and healing is hard work. You must decide to work at the process of getting well, otherwise you will depend on others to do it for you. No one is going to fix your life for you. You must choose to make the effort to do what the LORD asks of you to heal (Phil. 2:12-13)
- THE DECISION NOT TO BLAME OTHERS: It is a chronic sin of men and women to blame others for their problems, and failures. But to do so is often to hide behind a smoke screen and not take responsibility for one’s growth and maturity. Exposing sin, your own and that of other’s against you, is a decision to live in the truth. Refusing to make other people responsible for the choices we make honors God’s call on us to “live as children of light” (Eph. 5:8)
- THE DECISION TO TRUST: Underlying the decision to get well is the decision to trust God as you work through your problems. The Psalmist tells us that the “LORD’S unfailing love surrounds the man or woman who trusts in him,” (Ps. 32:10) and Isaiah tells us that “the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (Is. 28:16). Dealing with deep-seeded addictions, traumas and pain requires that your trust in God be grounded in the belief that He passionately loves you, and will see you through the struggle to be healed. In turn, you also have to trust that your counselors have your best interests at heart in Christ.
- THE DECISION TO EMBRACE THE TRUTH: Implied in all of this is the decision to live in the truth at all costs. Through the healing process, Jesus tells us that knowing the truth will set us free (Jn. 8:32). The LORD “delights in men who are truthful” (Pr. 12:22), and He “desires truth in the inner parts” (Ps. 51:6). The decision to get well is the choice to know the truth about God, about yourself, and about others. You must decide to let the Holy Spirit lead you into the truth so that lies, illusions, fantasies and deceits can be brought to light, and their influence neutralized.
- THE DECISION TO FORGIVE: In order to be healed and live the kind of life God has for you, He wants you to decide to forgive those who have hurt, abused, betrayed, abandoned, offended and violated you. Obviously, this can only be done by His grace, but you must choose to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in forgiving. It is essential to you getting better. Even if you can only pray for the willingness to forgive, you have to decide to move in that direction (Mt. 6:14; 18:21; Col. 3:13; Eph. 4:32). To forgive is to free yourself from the effects of the sin against you, and to not condemn the persons who harmed you.
- THE DECISION TO LIVE A NEW LIFE: It takes courage to live without old hurts and fears to hide behind. You need to decide to discover what it means to live as one of God’s treasured Beloved despite your brokenness. He invites you to a new life and we exhort you to say “Yes, Lord!”