Laura Henrich, Pastoral Counselor
To help you tell and hear your story in the presence of Jesus. He is grace and truth.
I meet with individuals processing stories, relationships, and patterns that feel confusing, complicated, disappointing, or stuck. This may be in family, friendship, or work, with God, church, Scripture, or yourself.
Experiences that need processing often involve relational rupture, codependent dynamics, enmeshment, anxiety, dysregulation, shame, coping mechanisms, ambivalence, anger, envy, loss, and longing.
You can call a thing what it is and not be owned by it; there is comfort, help, and hope.
I am a Board Certified Pastoral Counselor with the Board of Christian Professional and Pastoral Counseling (BCPPC). My training is biblical and pastoral. I hold a BA in Christian Theological Studies from Eastern University and an M.Div. from Beeson Divinity School where I am studying for a Ph.D. in Theology for the Church.
My approach is biblical and pastoral. I am not a practitioner of any modalities of clinical therapy. I have learned about trauma-informed care and somatic awareness (embodied experience) largely through Bessel van der Kolk and the educational offerings of the National Institute for Clinical and Behavioral Medicine (NICABM). I have benefited from the work of Curt Thompson and Dan Allender, from “story-work” and narrative-focused approaches, and from attachment theory. I appreciate some insights of both Family Systems and Internal Family Systems. They inform my understanding of human experience and the ways we try to make sense of it.
What do you mean by “pastoral counselor”?
Do you have time for a story?
When I moved to Birmingham in 2020 to study at Beeson Divinity School, I had been interested in counseling, attachment, and trauma for about six years. I had been studying these things on my own because I needed healing. I was drawn to people with similar experiences and we learned hard things together and from each other’s journeys. I was also seeing a clinical counselor (LPC), and receiving ministry from a prayer team, and pastoral care, and EMDR. I found all of these valuable, and they played different and necessary roles. I decided to pursue theological and pastoral training rather than that of a clinical therapist because in all the parts of healing I was receiving, I most of all needed to know how Jesus was good-enough news for me in a world that keeps breaking our hearts.
At Beeson, I received an M.Div. in 2023, the degree usually needed by pastors. In 2024 I began as a PhD student in Theology for the Church. My focus is on a couple of scripture passages in which God’s promise adopts us in Jesus, secures us in his love, and casts out our fear. These can be the hardest things to internalize.
Within the dedicated and confidential space and time of each session, I offer care as a pastoral counselor committed to the Christian Scriptures and creeds and curious about you and your story. My intention is to attune to you, listen to your history, and explore your patterns of relating. I will be alongside you to seek insight, help, and hope from the Lord.
Connect with me:
To request an appointment or ask a preliminary question, send me a message.
In-person or remote counseling sessions:
Embodied presence is ideal, but if you need remote care we can meet by video-conference.
Address
100 Century Park S.
Suite #224,
Birmingham AL 35226