About Me...
I love to help people grow. It seems that every stage of my life has been focused on helping people in one way or another!
I graduated from the US Air Force Academy – a place of huge personal growth in my life. Upon graduation, I became an instructor pilot, teaching men and women to fly both in the aircraft as well as from the teaching platform. While working with new pilots, I also found myself helping them in their personal and spiritual lives. Though I thoroughly enjoyed flying jets, I found significant fulfillment in working deeply in people’s lives.
I left the Air Force to continue to work helping people as an area representative for The Navigators, a Christian para-church organization. I led ministries on Air Force bases as well as communities in Texas and Oklahoma. Walking alongside of others in these ministries, revealed new levels of life’s brokenness that we all experience life’s journey. I took a sabbatical from the Navigator ministry to pursue further training in counseling to increase my effectiveness with others.
I choose to study at Grace Theological Seminary under two professors that I wanted to study under – Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan Allender. This was another season of deep personal growth as well as development as a counselor. Upon completion of my Masters of Arts in Biblical Counseling, I returned to Oklahoma to continue my ministry with the Navigators and further my growth as a counselor.
I was invited to be a staff counselor at Dallas Theological Seminary where I enjoyed working with seminary students and their spouses. I was also invited to be part of the new counseling team of the Navigators, working with Navigator ministry staff and returning missionaries.
In 1990, I relocated my family to the Northwest with the focus of forming a Christian counseling team for the Puget Sound area. In 1992, I founded Pearl Counseling Associates in Tacoma, WA. I served as the director at Pearl Counseling, working with clients in my own private practice as well as supervising other counselors working toward licensure in WA state. After 30 years of working deeply with people (26 years as a professional counselor), I retired (2013).
It is 2019 and after being asked by many people to work with them in a counseling relationship, I have decided to return to counseling in a part time manner. I will be taking on a limited number of clients.
Welcome to Mulhern Counseling, PLLC
Relationships - The Central Truth of Life
Life is to be lived to it’s fullest in the present. There is freedom from the wounds of the past from this broken world through God’s process of grief and healing along with the difficult work of forgiveness. From this ongoing process, our hearts can come alive and we are invited to live more engaged in the greatest calling in life – to love!
I view the counseling process as forming an alliance with you to explore the nature of your problem. Although we will spend time exploring the specific problem that brought you into counseling, we will also explore in depth, the nature of your relationships with other significant people in your life. In my theoretical orientation, dynamics that have influenced the complexity and intensity of your problem are rooted in relational issues.
In using a Biblical foundation in my counseling, I believe we are made to deeply relate – this is the source of our greatest joy but also our deepest pain. This is not to simplify your problem, but rather to highlight the complexity of the problem and how it interferes with the enjoyment for which you are most deeply made. This is also meant to give you hope – by dealing not only with the problem itself, but also the source of the problem.
Counseling is a relational alliance that provides the safety and support needed for healing and growth. Counseling is a shared experience with both counselor and client(s) contributing to its effectiveness. You can expect to be heard without judgment. Although I personally adhere to a Christian belief system, I respect and appreciate your right to address your spiritual growth in whatever manner you have chosen.