Christian Counseling
Faith in the Room, Only If You Want It There
Marisa is a Licensed Professional Counselor who also offers Christian counseling. It is one option among several — never a requirement, never assumed, and never a condition of working together.
What Faith-Integrated Counseling Actually Is
It is licensed clinical therapy — the same cognitive behavioral work, the same solution-focused planning, the same ethical standards — with room made for the part of you that believes. For some clients that means opening or closing with prayer. For others it means naming scripture that has been used against them, or asking hard questions about guilt, forgiveness and calling without being told to pray more and worry less.
What it is not: a Bible study, a substitute for clinical care, or a place where doubt is treated as a symptom. Faith does not replace evidence-based therapy here. It sits alongside it, at whatever weight you choose.
You Are in Control of This
- Opt in, not opt out. If you never raise faith, it never comes up.
- Change your mind any time. Clients move it in and out as seasons change. Just say so.
- Every faith and none. Most of Marisa's clients do not work this way, and they receive exactly the same care.
- No conditions. Belief is never required to be a client here.
Faith is yours to bring or leave at the door. Either way, you are welcome here.
Take a Moment With It
Is Faith-Integrated Counseling for Me?
This is not a filter and there is no wrong answer — every path below leads to the same welcome. Pick whichever line sounds most like you.
With faith in the room
- Prayer or scripture when you ask for it, never by default
- Your tradition respected, whatever it is
- The same CBT and solution-focused work underneath
You can move between these two at any point, in either direction, without explaining the change. Faith is your call, not a condition of working with Marisa — clients of any faith and none are equally welcome.
Why Marisa Offers It
Because for some people, leaving faith outside the room means leaving out the thing that hurts.
Marisa volunteers with church ministries and has spent ten years sitting with people whose faith is tangled up with their hardest questions — the mother who believes she should be able to do it all on grace alone, the student whose home church and campus life pull in opposite directions, the person trying to forgive someone who has never apologized. Those are clinical conversations and spiritual ones at the same time. You should not have to pick a therapist who can only hold half of it.
What Clients Bring to This Work
Guilt that will not lift
You have confessed it, prayed about it, and still carry it every day. We look at what the guilt is doing, where it is accurate, and where it has become a habit rather than a conviction.
Forgiveness you cannot force
You have been told to forgive and you cannot get there. We slow that down — what forgiveness is, what it is not, and what is actually being asked of you.
Faith and mental health together
Whether medication, therapy, or needing help at all means something is wrong with your faith. It does not. We can say that plainly and keep working.
Marisa is a licensed counselor, not a pastor or clergy member, and this is not spiritual direction. If you would like your pastor or church community involved in your care, that can be coordinated with your written consent.
Clients of every faith and of none do good work in this room.
Bring As Much or As Little of It As You Like
Mention faith on your free consultation — or do not. Either way, you will get the same honest, warm, non-judgmental care.