Therapist Core Values | Fuller Life Family Therapy

Compassion: At FullerLife, we approach our individual therapy, couples counseling and family therapy with compassion, kindness, and respect. We are non-judgmental, accepting, and compassionate in our words, actions, and thoughts. While holding a respectful stance, we reflect back to the client what we observe. The coupling of honesty with respect assists the client to grow in deeper relationships with themselves and their loved ones.
Collaboration: We value a team approach in therapy, as well as in our relationships with each other. Fuller Life was created to offer a team approach in helping clients heal and helping each other grow in our therapy skills. We have weekly staff meetings where we learn from each other and explore new and creative collaborative possibilities. We all have different gifts and varying levels of experience, but we continue to grow as we share and learn. Our vision is to grow organically as a richly layered and vital community of skilled therapists.

Clinical Community: Our clinical community is founded on the belief in the healing potential of the therapeutic relationship and the importance of providing a safe, sacred, and contained space for our clients. It is nurtured by our support of each other and our dedication to continued training, supervision, and peer interaction. Clinical focus is based on contemporary, relational, solution-oriented systemic models of psychotherapy. Therapists value a person-centered and holistic approach as we listen to and tend to the hearts, minds, bodies, and souls of our clients. In counseling, we walk with clients through defense structures and into self-expression with the aim of relieving and healing suffering. Many of us no longer need the walls we built previously to protect ourselves, but would never risk taking them down alone.

Cooperative: We also approach clients with a “post-modern collaborative approach” in our individual therapy, couple’s counseling and family counseling. This means we believe that a client knows him or herself better than we know him or her and has the resources within to resolve concerns or work through a difficult situation. We work together as professionals to find new hope, solutions, and possibilities for living a life more full of love, relationship, and joy no matter the circumstance for our clients and for ourselves. Our commitment to specific, joint collaboration, and our reliance on spiritual enlightenment, is key to everything we do.

Creativity: The witty, wise playwright George Bernard Shaw said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” We are creative beings. We write the story of our lives by the words, actions, and thoughts we create and the way we interpret experiences. Thinking outside the box using the imagination can be a turning point when we feel stuck. As therapists, we seek to be creative, imaginative, and sometimes even playful, to help our clients find solutions, new hope, and ultimately healing.

Cultural Diversity: We value diversity. Our therapists are trained to be culturally sensitive, ethical, systemically oriented marriage and family therapists. We promote an understanding of human development to effectively assess, diagnose, and treat a diverse population of individuals, couples and families while considering the societal dynamics of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, ability, etc. By incorporating the social and relational context into the therapeutic process we deepen our ability to provide effective therapy to a wide range of people. While our therapists and their clients may not hold the same value system, our ethical codes of clinical practice require a stance of respect for differing viewpoints. This often requires that therapists differentiate their own personal values and beliefs from the therapeutic work they do with their clients. Our clinical team works together in various forms of supervision and group processing to help examine our own values and belief systems in ways that ensure they do not interfere with clients clinical progress.

Change-Oriented: The relationship between therapist and client is a catalyst for transformation. We trust that our clients have within them what they need to affect great change in their lives, and the world, and that therapy is a process of uncovering and actualizing this potential. We value our belief that all people are capable of creating change in their current situation with the right support. Growth is always possible. We know we have grown when we react differently to the same old situation. We can help you change, whether that means embracing a new perspective, developing a new habit, incorporating a new way of communicating, or healing from a very traumatic experience. In order to achieve change, we must address difficult issues to find new hope for the journey. We will walk the dark road with you.

Confidentiality: We value and take the confidentiality of our patients seriously. Whatever is said in this sacred space stays in this sacred space. While we discuss cases with the other therapy professionals associated with the group, we do so only for the purpose of providing the best care possible in order to enhance professional development. The limits to confidentiality apply when there are valid concerns about harm to the client, others, or children.

fullerlife together

Comfortable and Casual Atmosphere: We have been intentional about creating a space we think is warm and welcoming for our individual counseling, marriage counseling and family counseling. A place of healing and comfort. The building is quiet, the rooms are inviting, and the music is relaxing. We also make efforts to be informal. We ask to be called by our first names instead of our formal professional titles. Sometimes we take off our shoes and put our feet on the couch during sessions.

Clinician Development: Fuller Life Family Therapy seeks to fill a gap in the training of professional counselors and marriage and family therapists with a post-graduate fellowship for graduates of masters level marriage and family therapy and counseling programs. The foundational goals of our post-graduate fellowship include developing the following: excellent clinical skills, professional confidence, ethical practice, diversity and cultural competence, assessment skills, research opportunities, administrative management, and experience as teacher, consultant, writer, speaker and trainer. Additionally, each associate will develop several key areas of specialization during the fellowship of their choosing. The training at Fuller Life values both a relational and systemic focus. As a marriage and family therapist, all training is relational, related to context, and culturally sensitive, whether contact hours are relational or individual, whether diagnostic procedure is traditional or relational, and whether a presenting problem is explicitly related to a marriage, a family, or to neither. The fellowship focuses on fostering a solid framework for the associate based upon a comprehensive and substantive understanding and foundation of human development, family dynamics, systemic thinking, interactional theories, traditional and contemporary marriage and family therapy theories, research, and the cultural context in which they are embedded.

Christian-Based: We believe spirituality is a great resource for many people and seek to stay aware of the healing process from a spiritual point of view. However, we always work from the client’s worldview instead of our own. All the staff at Fuller Life embrace and value a Christian worldview. If the client self-identifies as a Christian and would like to have this be an aspect of the counseling, our therapists will integrate Christian principles into the conversation. If you would like therapy to include Christian counseling, please indicate on the intake form.

Charity: The Fuller Life Family Therapy Institute is a not-for-profit charitable organization with pending 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. Contributions are tax-deductible. We are grateful to the various individuals, churches, and organizations that partner with us in our dream of serving the counseling needs of individuals, children, and families in the Houston area regardless of their ability to pay