Therapy for the parent as a person, not as a project manager for the household. Slower, deeper work on your own history, anxiety, grief, marriage, and the way you were parented.
Parent counseling treats you as the client. The frame isn't 'how do I handle my 14-year-old' — that's coaching. The frame here is 'why does his door slamming send me back to being nine years old,' 'why can't I stop yelling even though I hate it,' 'why does my marriage feel like a co-parenting contract.' Those are questions that don't answer to a homework sheet. They answer to real therapeutic work, done at the pace it takes.
Your own family of origin and the parenting you inherited. The anxiety or depression that was there before the kids and got harder once they arrived. Trauma — including the trauma of a hard pregnancy, a NICU stay, or a mental-health emergency with your own child. The state of your marriage or your co-parenting relationship after divorce. Grief you never got to sit with. What loneliness has done to you over the last few years. Any one of these can be enough to bring a functioning parent to their knees; most people carry more than one.
Sessions are conversational and paced to you. Depending on what you're bringing, the work draws on cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety and rumination, psychodynamic work for family-of-origin patterns, mindfulness and somatic grounding for regulation, and EMDR when a specific traumatic memory or set of memories is driving symptoms. John is trained in EMDR (not certified) and uses it as part of a broader plan rather than as a standalone product.
Most parent-counseling clients come weekly for the first two to three months, then move to every other week as things stabilize. Some stay in weekly work for a year or more, especially if there's trauma processing or a marriage under real strain. There is no fixed course. We'll set goals at intake, check in on them at session six, and again around session twelve, and adjust from there.
The two services can look similar from the outside — same office, same clinician, same session — but they're doing different work. Coaching is directive, tactical, and household-focused, and it produces homework. Counseling is exploratory, clinical, and person-focused, and it produces insight and change over time. Some parents start with coaching, realize the tactics keep failing because their own tank is empty, and move over to counseling. Others start in counseling and later add coaching once they have the emotional bandwidth to run new plays at home.
Fees are $195 for the initial intake — which includes a clinical assessment and treatment plan — and $155 for each subsequent session. Shepherd's Heart is in-network with Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina; a Good Faith Estimate is provided at intake. Sessions are available in the Siler City office or by secure telehealth anywhere you are physically located in North Carolina.
Many families combine this work with parent coaching or children's counseling. If you're not sure where to begin, reach out for a free consultation and we'll figure out the right starting point together.
No. If you have symptoms that meet criteria for anxiety, depression, PTSD, or adjustment disorder, a diagnosis may be given (especially if you're using insurance) — but nothing about your parenting has to look 'clinical enough' to justify coming in. Burnout, resentment, and quiet grief are enough.
Coaching gives you tactics for the household. Counseling works on you — your history, your anxiety or depression, your marriage, the way you were parented. If you're basically fine and just need better tools, choose coaching. If something in you is running on empty or getting activated by the parenting, choose counseling.
Sometimes. If a specific interaction between you and your child would move the work forward — for example, a repair conversation with your teen or a family session about a rule that keeps breaking — we'll schedule that intentionally. The default is one-on-one.
Yes. Telehealth works well for adult individual work, and many parents prefer it because it's the only way to fit therapy around childcare. It's available to any client physically located in North Carolina.
A free 15-minute consultation. Send a request and John will get back to you with times that actually work — no pressure, no forms up front.
