DeVine Interventions

As a practitioner of ACT, I integrate my clients' faith into their treatment. Faith is essential to improving mental health. To ignore it, a therapist must try to divide the human psyche rather than viewing it as a whole. If you'd like to learn more about the importance of faith in therapy and how it makes ACT effective, read my newest blog here:

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy | Faith and Mental Health DeVine Interventions Group Blog: Pennsylvania's trusted Christian counselor on faith-based Acceptance and Commitment therapy.

What is hope, for the Christian in particular? How does it help us to suffer? If Christianity, religion or spirituality, mental health, and their intersections interest you, click the link below to read more:

Hope | Dig Biblical Counseling Blog DeVine Interventions Group: Philadelphia's trusted Christian counselor. Discover hope, healing, and spiritual growth with us.

Community: A Struggle to Fit

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Community: A Struggle to Fit When it comes to community in the church, many people feel like onlookers. For many, deep fellowship seems far off. Some feel excluded because they “do not fit in,” and others are unsure how to engage. In the church of Jesus, this should not be. All believers should feel welcome and invited to b...

Speaking Truth in Marital Conflict

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Speaking Truth in Marital Conflict “You always prioritize work over me.” “You never take my feelings into consideration.” “Your only concern is your own comfort.” Here is a universal rule for marriage counselors: don’t allow couples to speak to each other in absolutes. We know that when couples use words like always, ne...

The Power of Kindness

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The Power of Kindness Kindness is one of the few things that will gentle the response of others. Teach kids how to show kindness to others. Were you ever bullied on the playground? Or called names by the neighbor kid? Do you have an annoying co-worker? A friend who pushes your buttons? When I was a kid, my mom would admo...

Reminding Christians of the Gospel

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Reminding Christians of the Gospel Through biblical counseling, we have the privilege to share the gospel with non-Christians and Christians. Why would a Christian need to hear the gospel? Once saved, always saved, right? It’s true that God’s power will guard the faith of believers and that believers will persevere in their faith...

Preparing the Church to Help

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Preparing the Church to Help I was leaving a restaurant when I received a call about a serious accident in our community. The caller ended with, “Come quick!” I was a counselor educator at North Carolina Central University and had recently begun serving as a pastor at Tippett’s Chapel, a rural church. When I arrived, what...

Christianity and Science: How Science Can Strengthen Your Teen’s Faith

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Christianity and Science: How Science Can Strengthen Your Teen’s Faith Finding a way to fit science and religion together can feel overwhelming. For our teens, logic and reasoning present some of the greatest threats to complete belief in Christianity. However, as parents, you can guide your teen to a deeper understanding of how God created science to support our faith...

Finishing Faithfully

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Finishing Faithfully Not all of us know when we are nearing the end of our lives in the same way Moses did, but the reality is, not one of us is guaranteed tomorrow. So in some sense, there is wisdom in living every day with the intention of finishing faithfully. Moses served the Lord unwaveringly for 40 years, leading....

Living with the Tension of Uncertainty

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Living with the Tension of Uncertainty For years I heard Christians talk about living by faith. I did not really grasp how to do that in my daily life until I heard Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, talk about this issue. He suggested that many Christians do not live by faith because they have no patience for not knowing and no toleranc...

Inviting God into the Hard Places

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Inviting God into the Hard Places We say “life is hard,” and everyone nods in support. It is a common truism, a well-accepted reality we all can affirm. The political climate, the cultural tone, work pressures, personal and relational stress—all of these contribute. People are anxious, overwhelmed, divided, polarized, and wear...

3 Prayers to Pray With Your Spouse

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3 Prayers to Pray With Your Spouse Enrich your relationship by praying as a couple! I’LL NEVER FORGET AN EVENTFUL DRIVE HOME from a road trip to Oregon. My wife, Kim, our four kids, and I were packed into our station wagon, complete with luggage in our rooftop carrier. Coming out of the California mountains, we passed a semitruck. ...

Suffering

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Suffering I’ve been counseling at my church since 2004, and the cases I have now are very challenging. So much suffering. So much sadness. So many questions. So little hope. Suffering is rarely a neutral event. Counselees have perceptions, experiences, assumptions, and expectations that influence how they i...

Counseling Military Families: Key Factors in Effective Care

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Counseling Military Families: Key Factors in Effective Care “What a day!… First I forgot my ID and couldn’t pay off my StarCard at the PX, after that, I couldn’t sign the children up for soccer at CYS because I forgot my husband’s LES (and still didn’t have my ID). I finally made it to my FRG meeting and found out some great ideas for his R and R...

God Does Not Despise the Small Things

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God Does Not Despise the Small Things Zechariah 4:10 says, “Who despises the day of small things?” Indeed, everything we do is a very small thing. The Lord asks this rhetorical question of Zerubbabel, who led the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple around 530 B.C. The Hebrew exiles were returning from Babylon, which was very good. Wh...

How to Handle Arguments in Marriage

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How to Handle Arguments in Marriage My husband and I knew we were too upset for a conversation—but we had it anyway. What started as a tense volley of one-liners devolved into a yelling match and then the ice-cold silence that often follows our heated exchanges. By the end of the evening, we were both exhausted from the tension and ...

Responding to Emotional Abuse in Marriage

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Responding to Emotional Abuse in Marriage This post is dedicated to the women I’ve met who have inspired me by their faith and strength in the midst of painful marriages. I’ve seen marriages that reflect Christ and the Church: husbands lovingly leading their homes and wives lovingly submitting to their husbands. How good (and hope-fille...

Don’t Blow Up Your Ministry: Defuse the Underlying Issues That Take Pastors Down

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Don’t Blow Up Your Ministry: Defuse the Underlying Issues That Take Pastors Down I answered the phone at our office. It was a pastor calling. He got right to the point. “If you don’t help me, I might not be here a year from now.” He was talking about su***de. Pastors are hurting right now. Yes, everyone is hurting but some are carrying more burdens than others. Pastors are...

Facing death with hope: Living for what lasts

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Facing death with hope: Living for what lasts Is a life-threatening illness, a major life change, or just plain old age forcing you to face your own mortality? Is your eventual death looming like a dark cloud over your life? Are you sure of what will happen when you die? How are you dealing with your questions about death? Fear? Dread? Denial?....

Fear Not

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Fear Not His words remind us (again) that, by His death, He rescued us from the fear of our death. Therefore we are released from having to "cower through life, scared to death of death." With her parents’ blessings, Jennifer left the comfort of her Colorado home and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career...

The Trap of Comparison

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The Trap of Comparison It’s 10:30 pm—time for Erin to hop into bed and scroll through social media one last time. This evening, she lands on Instagram. For a half-hour, her fingers swipe through visually filtered images of beautiful women, families posing as best friends, picturesque plates of food, and houses far mor...

Creating a Culture of On-Site Self-Care Strategies

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Creating a Culture of On-Site Self-Care Strategies Burnout was recently defined as an epidemic and diagnosable condition by the World Health Organization. With the COVID19 pandemic, it is time to begin developing onsite self-care strategies. Whether we are in the office, or joining virtually, there are stressors leading to the burnout that so many h...

God Wants You to Call Him “My Father”

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God Wants You to Call Him “My Father” There is not one psalm that is addressed to “Father,” “My Father,” or “Our Father.”[1] So when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, and he opened with: “Father, hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2), it must have seemed foreign to them. They had heard Jesus pray this way. No...

When Boundaries Hinder Bonding

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When Boundaries Hinder Bonding Rules are important, but connecting with your teen is essential. “My 17-year-old daughter never wants to talk with me.” The middle-aged mom at my parenting workshop dabbed at her eyes with a tissue as she described the parent-child relationship she had with her oldest daughter. “I don’t know...

Teens and Time Management

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Teens and Time Management It is common for teenagers to struggle with stress. Many factors contribute to stress, including poor time management. This issue is amplified as of late 2020 due to how many teens who previously attended in-person classes are now doing their schoolwork online. The structures put in place in traditi...

Working with High Conflict Couples: Assessing for Abusive Elements

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Working with High Conflict Couples: Assessing for Abusive Elements Working with high conflict couples presents unique challenges that frustrate and confuse even experienced counselors. We can work for months, even years, without seeing improvement. And, we can miss some crucial diagnostic components if we are not mindful of what to look for. High conflict couples e...

The Danger of Comparison

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The Danger of Comparison Comparison is a common human struggle. We look to those around us to assess whether we are ok, not ok—or really not ok. Perhaps we thought we were ok until we opened up Facebook or Instagram and saw the beautiful new addition someone put on their home, or the all-inclusive vacation they were enjoy...

4 Thieves That Want to Rob You of God’s Joy

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4 Thieves That Want to Rob You of God’s Joy Unmask these joy stealers so they don't keep you from living in God's joy, especially during difficult times The season I was in felt scarred. My daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer. My son was trapped in an addiction. And I discovered my cancer had returned. I knew what the Bible said about t...

Having Heroes Helps

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Having Heroes Helps The best counselors are always on the lookout for new blogs, podcasts, audio lectures, booklets, and books to recommend to counselees. So much has been written and said concerning typical and even atypical counseling problems. We start with the Bible, of course, the primary resource. It points us to...