A place for healing and hope ...
for everyone - adults, children and adolescents, individuals, couples and families

In today's fast-paced world, it is difficult to escape from the pressures and uncertainties of daily living. Career demands, personal relationships, and family situations often contribute to depression, grief, stress, anxiety, and other emotional hurdles. At the Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center, we can offer you help with these problems.

We draw upon the unique talents of professionals from the counseling, theological, and bioenergetic disciplines. We work together to restore the whole person: mind, body, and spirit.

We can offer you - or someone you know - help to cope with the challenges of life, grow toward spiritual and emotional maturity, and strengthen personal relationships.

If you are facing stress or discord, whether because of a crisis or a long-standing concern, please call us today (515) 274-4006. We can help you grieve your losses, heal your wounds, enrich your life and deepen its meaning through the healing and hope of counseling.

We can help you ...

• Improve self-esteem
  
• Resolve marital and family conflict
  
• Address parent/child concerns
  
• Ease the effects of anxiety or stress
  
• Heal from depression
  
• Grieve and recover from life’s losses and disappointments
  
• Address issues related to illness and pain
  
• Explore intimacy issues
  
• Understand your anger
  
• Heal from abuse and trauma
  
• Understand body image/eating disorders
  
• Confront addictive behaviors
  
• Resolve job-related concerns and find new meaning in your career/vocational life
  
• Strengthen your spiritual life
  
• Begin to reclaim optimal health, vitality, and well-being
  

Pastoral counseling is ...
The Pastoral in our name is the traditional name for counseling that integrates therapy with a client’s values and/or faith. The Center's caring counselors enhance their academic training and licensure with compassion, acceptance, and intentional respect for the values and beliefs of each client.

The Center's holistic approach to healing addresses the interplay of mind-body-spirit, seeing each dimension as worthy of care.

How we make a difference ...
The Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center provides a wide range of counseling and takes a whole-person approach to healing.

• We help our clients find ways to express all their concerns.
  
• We understand the integration of mind, body, and spirit that exists within all persons, and this understanding informs how we approach therapy.
  
• Our view of healing involves questions of meaning and value as well as symptom relief.
  
• We respect the uniqueness and diversity of all human creation.
  
• We have a passion for professional education and training that ensures the highest quality counseling services for every client.
  

Back to the top of the page

Services Offered for Couples and Families

• Relationship/Marital/Family Counseling
• Premarital Counseling*
• Marriage Enrichment
• Divorce Mediation
• Human Sexuality Therapy

Integrative Energy Work
Healing Touch Therapy*
Health Promotion
Acute and Chronic Illness Support
Pain Management
Self-Healing Consultation
Spiritual Direction

C.O.O.L. (Children Overcoming the Obstacles of Life)

C.O.O.L. offers a safe and nurturing place within the Center for counseling children. C.O.O.L. helps youth who have physical, emotional, and/or mental challenges, have been harmed or neglected by another person, or are having trouble adjusting to a major life-change. C.O.O.L. clients range in age from 2-18. C.O.O.L. counselors recognize that kids are not miniature adults. They have unique ways of viewing the world and expressing their emotions. Our child therapists in C.O.O.L. strive to build bridges among all the facets of a young person’s life ~ family, school, and community.

Issues Addressed and Services Offered for Children and Adolescents:

• Behavioral Problems
• Depression/Anxiety/Emotional Concerns
• Emotional/Sexual/Physical Abuse Issues
• ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
• Developmental Disorders, including Autism and Asperger's Syndrome
• Parenting and Parent/Child Relations
• Self-Esteem Issues
• Loss and Grief Responses
• Substance Abuse
• Evaluation/Testing

Please call the Center for further information about C.O.O.L. or to make an appointment with a C.O.O.L. counselor (274-4006).

Back to the top of the page

Testing and Assessment Services

The Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center is your resource for a variety of forms of psychological testing.

For children, we offer cognitive/intelligence assessment, adaptive behavior assessment (including testing for developmental delays), sexual abuse determination, and assessment of personality, thought processing, emotional functioning. We offer testing for specific learning disorders, including reading, math, receptive and expressive language (both written and oral), and nonverbal learning disorders; as well as testing for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. We also offer screening for specific conditions, including, autism spectrum disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Selective Mutism, among others. Finally, we offer testing for MR Waivers.

For adults, we offer psychological assessment for career change and vocational counseling, differential diagnosis, international adoptions, bariatric surgery, and clergy candidates. Additionally, this fall we will begin offering intelligence and achievement testing for adults as well as testing for adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Testing is offered on both an insurance and sliding scale basis. If you would like to schedule an appointment, please contact the Center at (515) 274-4006.

Back to the top of the page

Forgiveness Group Counseling

Do you or someone you know struggle with anger, hurt, or holding a grudge?

Individuals who are holding on to these feelings may be able to address these issues through group therapy at Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center! People who can recall a time when they were offended or hurt by someone and have not gotten beyond the experience are good candidates for a Forgiveness Group. In other words, people who would likely say that they are still angry, hurt, or upset about the event, or are still holding a grudge. If that is true for you or someone you know, the Forgiveness Group therapy opportunity may be for you.

What is the First Step?

The Center is partnering with Iowa State University to conduct group therapy sessions at the Center as part of a forgiveness study at ISU. The first step is to indicate interest in the forgiveness group counseling by contacting the study team at ISU. Call (515-294-1898) or email (info@isugroupstudy.com). This team will work with you to set up a time for a short interview with one of the team members and to complete the initial paperwork and questionnaires for the study.

If deemed eligible for this study, each individual will be assigned to a weekly meeting time in Des Moines that works with their schedule. Groups meet for 90 minutes once a week for two months. Groups will be held at Des Moines Pastoral Counseling Center, 8553 Urbandale Ave., in Urbandale. There is no cost for participation. For more information, please visit the study’s website: http://www.isugroupstudy.com.