“We train, equip and empower developing therapists who provide professional therapy to families and individuals at affordable rates.”
Compassion
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.
Our vision is to grow organically as a richly layered and vital community of skilled therapists.
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 at the same time.
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, and we all continue to grow as we share and learn.
Cooperation
We approach clients with a “collaborative approach” in our individual therapy, couple’s counseling and family counseling. Pairing the clients desire to resolve and address the presenting concern with our therapists unique skill set means generating new ideas and solutions. We work together as professionals to find new hope and possibilities for living a life more full of love, relationship, and joy no matter the circumstance.
Our commitment to cooperative collaboration, alongside 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.
Confidentiality
We 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.
Change
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 believe 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.
Cultural Diversity
Our therapists are trained to be culturally sensitive, ethical, and 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 societal dynamics such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity and ability. 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 share the same value systems, our ethical codes of clinical practice require a stance of respect for differing viewpoints. This often necessitates that therapists differentiate their personal values and beliefs from their therapeutic work. Our clinical team engages in various forms of supervision and group processing to examine our own values and belief systems, ensuring they do not interfere with clients’ clinical progress.
We are committed to being anti-racist and opposed to discrimination in all its forms. We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual and are dedicated to creating a space that is not only welcoming but also affirming of all identities, including those in the LGBTQ community. Our practice is inclusive and sex-positive, meaning we see sexuality as a good and essential part of each person, recognizing and respecting each client’s unique journey. We work with clients to help them discern their best path forward, offering space without judgment or discrimination. Our practice is dedicated to fostering diversity, equality, and respect for each person’s unique journey, helping individuals navigate their paths to empowerment, authenticity, and fulfillment.
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 ofindividuals, children, and families in the Houston area regardless of their ability to pay.
Community
Our clinical community is founded on the belief in the healing potential of the therapeutic relationship and the importance of providing a calm, 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 have 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.
Comfort
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.
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. We always work from the client’s worldview instead of our own. We seek to approach all people with kindness and non-judgement welcoming the client’s spirituality as a resource when appropriate.
The current staff at Fuller Life all embrace a Christian worldview and our resident therapists commit to an intense post-graduate fellowship integrating personal faith with the professional practice of therapy. As a part of our group training, we work together to harness both the grace and strength of our personal values and beliefs to sustain our purpose of inviting healing for others.
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 spirituality, please indicate on the intake form.
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 has 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.
At Fuller Life, we live out our mission through our core values of compassionate care, collaborative teamwork, charity, engaging the clinical community, cooperating with client goals, creative and change-oriented interventions that are culturally sensitive and respect client confidentiality, all in a comfortable environment that seeks high standards for clinician development and honors our Christian values.