Helping You Find Success With A Spiritually-Minded Counselor
Feel Like It’s Time to Make a Change in Your Life?
Sometimes life presents problems that your current prayer group or church atmosphere is unable to penetrate – and you know you would benefit from the listening ear of a trained professional who shares your spiritual outlook.
What Is Pastoral Counseling?
A unique form of cousneling
Using spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth
Provided by pastoral counselors
Dr. Bednar is a mental health professional who has also had in-depth religious and theological training
Don't have someone to confide in at church?
Maybe you don’t have a church, or, perhaps the problem you’re facing involves someone in your spiritual community. Maybe your church is fantastic but you’re unsure who to inquire about the problem you’re facing – there can be many important reasons why it’s sometimes wise to seek support from a professional counselor.
Confidentiality
Pastoral counseling services are best provided in an atmosphere of trust. All the information that you share will be treated with great care. You will be asked to sign a “release of information” form before information is shared.
How Do I know If Pastoral Counseling is Right For Me?
Pastoral counseling is a unique form of counseling which uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth. It is provided by pastoral counselors, who may be mental health professionals but who have also had in-depth religious and/or theological training.
Pastoral counseling moves beyond the support or encouragement a religious community can offer, by providing psychologically sound therapy that weaves in the religious and spiritual dimension.
Prepare & Enrich©<br /> Premarital Couseling
Preparing couples for marriage has been found to reduce the rate of divorce by 30%. Premarital counseling, coaching, and education are investments in your futures. Includes an electronic personalized assessment and involves an average of six sessions.
Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine, or to learn and grow in their own personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of their encounters of the divine, or how they are experiencing spiritual issues.
Dr. Bednar listens and asks questions to assist the person in their process of reflection and spiritual growth. Spiritual direction develops a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. It is not psychotherapy, counseling, or financial planning.
Spiritual Formation
In Care of Mind, Care of Spirit, Gerald G. May has written, “Spiritual formation is a rather general term referring to all attempts, means, instruction, and disciplines intended towards deepening of faith and furtherance of spiritual growth. It includes educational endeavors as well as the more intimate and in-depth process of spiritual direction.” In spiritual formation, the focus is on Jesus. It is a life-long process as a believer desires to become a disciple of Jesus and become more like Him. Dallas Willard writes that
“spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.”
Formational Prayer
As defined by Dr. Terry Wardle, formational prayer is “the process in which broken people are positioned, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to encounter the healing Christ in the memories of traumatic events, so that Jesus might set them free from false beliefs, emotional upheaval, and dysfunctional behaviors.”
Dr. Bednar practices the model taught by Dr. Wardle through Healing Care Ministries.
Other Treatment Options
If you might benefit from a treatment which Dr. Bednar cannot provide, you will be referred to receive the needed services. What is most important is that your best interests be addressed. Please feel free to ask about other treatments, their risks, and their benefits. Based on what is learned about your problems, you may be referred for a medical exam, the use of medication, and/or clinical counseling. If this is done, the reasons will be discussed with you so that you can decide what is best. If for some reason meetings are not going well, it may be suggested that you see another counselor or another professional.
Benefits & Risks
In pastoral counseling, major life decisions are sometimes made—including decisions involving separation within families, development of other types of relationships, changing employment settings, and changing of lifestyles.
My Approach
Dr. Bednar is educated and licensed as both a clinical pastoral counselor and a chemical dependency counselor. Dr. Bednar provides counseling services under the umbrella of Dr. Bednar Counseling, LLC.
However, it is important for you to know that she is currently called to serve under her Doctor of Ministry education as a pastoral counselor. And as such, the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapists Board does not recognize this calling.
As a pastoral counselor, Dr. Bednar will not be developing a treatment plan, making a diagnosis, nor discussing medication referrals.
Dr. Bednar is not practicing as a clinical counselor and will refer you should those services better serve your needs.
Schedule a 1:1
Meetings are available in person in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area and in Ashland, Ohio. However, most meetings can take place virtually via Skype. Most meetings consist of 60 minutes. In the case of premarital counseling, meetings usually run 90 minutes. If you are seeking formational prayer, the first meeting must be face-to-face.
Fees
Fees are $120.00 per hour for face-to-face meetings.
Virtual fees (Skype) are $80.00 per hour and are payable via PayPal prior to the meeting.
Insurance
While insurance recognizes telepsychiatry and telemedicine, it does not yet recognize tele-counseling as a reimbursable fee. You are responsible for contacting your insurance company for details.
Dr. Bednar does not accept insurance as payment.