Counseling services
PTSD Therapy
Family Conflict
Therapy
Addiction
Therapy
How We Do Therapy
Broken Vessels Counseling helps patients address many of life’s problems through therapy that focuses on truth, empathy, confidentiality, and nurtured positive self-esteem. As an experienced therapist and counselor, Richard Dion prides himself on focusing only on the present problem of the client in their present moment of need. By using therapy sessions to address one problem at a time with each individual client, the client does not get lost in the chaos that appears to consume their life.
Knoxville Family Therapy
During Family Therapy, we focus on the basic foundational aspects affected by the family’s current crisis. We do this by addressing four specific principles during therapy sessions:
- First, we seek to better understand the the family unit’s interactional dynamic, and how each member within the family presently engages with one another.
- Secondly, we strive to accurately identify, develop, and nurture all the family’s internal strengths, in order to minimize and prevent family conflict.
- Thirdly, we seek to teach, mediate, and encourage each member to contribute towards healthy communication skills. Some of the standard counseling techniques we use to achieve this goal are “I Statements” and “Rules for Fair Fighting.”
- Finally, throughout every therapy session the family discovers, develops, and strengthens their new problem-solving skillset – not individually, but as a mutually benefiting team.
Knoxville Group Therapy
At Broken Vessels Counseling, we incorporate both forms of Group Therapy (Mental Health Education and Process-Oriented) when working with a group of individuals who share commonality with issues or problematic areas of life, such as:
- Abuse
- Grief
- PTSD or other Military-Related Stress
Through group therapy, clients discover that there is strength in numbers. By mirroring the principles taught by Professor Irvin Yalom in his book The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, clients assist other members of their group to develop new and healthier perspectives on life, the lives of others, and their surroundings.
Secondly, group therapy is effective in helping clients develop appropriate social skills, as well as the value of teamwork. This is achieved through social networking and developing a personal safety system.
Lastly, when combining group therapy with individual therapy, clients not only develop life changes with new coping skills, but also learn to proactively maintain their new progress with the help of their new family of supporters.
Knoxville Individual Therapy
We do not believe in engaging any client through a cookie-cutter mindset, but rather on a case-by-case system where the client and their present issues are the central focus. We do not all react to a given crisis in the same way. One person may fight through it; another may flee from it; and yet another may just freeze up and do nothing. This is what is known as the flight, fight, and freeze response.
Likewise, how therapy works for one person might not work for another. We follow this principle through individual client-centered therapy. With individual therapy, the client will be exposed to such counseling modalities as:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
- Accountability Commitment Therapy (ACT)
We strive to work one-on-one with each client in an environment of safety and security, both online as well as face-to-face. We always validate and encourage positive personal change, greater quality of life, sustainable recovery, and effective coping abilities. The client will be encouraged to continue practicing and applying their new skills outside of sessions.
With all forms of therapy offered at Broken Vessels Counseling, confidentiality is always expected and enforced by both therapist and client. This contributes towards the development of the client-therapist relationship, which is built on trust and transparency.
Meet Your Knoxville Therapist
Richard Dion is a retired Navy veteran who served for over 20 years during various overseas combatant campaigns (i.e. Desert Storm, Desert Shield, through to Iraqi Freedom). He is also a proud Christian husband and father of 5 (not including 3 grandchildren).
Richard is one of 3 survivors of over 10 years of various forms of child abuse under the hand of his mother and stepfather, who struggled with alcohol and substance addictions.
He graduated from Liberty University with both his Bachelor of Science in Psychology/Christian Counseling and his Master of Arts in Professional Counseling. He lives life with many ethical and moral values, with a primary focus on demonstrating compassion for God, country, family, and people.
He is passionate about walking alongside others, encouraging them and holding them accountable in their therapy journey to restore their lives from the shards of brokenness into a personal and valuable work of art.
Who does your therapist help?
I am ethically and morally bound to a principle of helping all people in the world that life’s storms bring my way. Although I will never turn anyone away, there are certain issues that I have a successful history and experience with.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Therapy
Through mental health education and assigned homework during individual therapy sessions, the client will gain greater levels of insight into how each stage of PTSD – Impact, Denial, Short-Term, & Long-Term Recovery – affects their lives and those around them.
Secondly, each client is encouraged to courageously develop and strengthen their own personal safety network with others in their assigned PTSD group. Here each member of the group experiences the benefits of developing trust, self-awareness, accountability, and expressed empathy while engaging with other members in the group.
Lastly, by working with each member of the client’s immediate family unit during family therapy sessions, we continue demonstrating the principle behind “There is strength in numbers.” We pride ourselves on not only restoring the individual, but also the home, where most of their support comes from.
We provide a 12-step form of group therapy – peer group therapy – in which we encourage members of a recovery group to conduct their own meetings under the guidance and direction of the therapist. We believe that empathy, teamwork, positive self-esteem, and self-accountability can best grow and flourish in an environment where tough love is not only given, but received equally and honestly.
These are just a few of the issues we help our clients overcome. We have experience working with men and women in all stages of development (childhood, adolescence, adult, and seniors), Christians, and members of the LGBT community.
Life Coaching
Here at Broken Vessels, we provide an alternative to modern secular, or Christian counseling. Therapy mainly focuses on the past to make sense of the present, and aids in changing the future trajectory in life. On the other hand, Life Coaching focuses more on extenuating the individual’s natural ability to chart and transit their own course though life. Only with the assistant of a guide, the Coach, can a person successfully get from where they are in the present to the future they can only dream of today.
Broken Vessels Counseling can help anyone achieve this in coaching through four basic principles of professional coaching.
- First is to identify and understand where you are in life, where you want to go to, and what is preventing you from achieving your goal.
- Second is not only for the coach to motivate the client, but to teach the client how to encourage and motivate themselves to continue working their plan to fulfillment, especially during days between sessions.
- Thirdly, Broken Vessels can ensure success for those who yearn for a brighter tomorrow, through developing appropriate strategies. Here the client learns and chooses certain techniques that ensure their success in achieving their goal. Clients also learn how to assess and troubleshoot their plans so to develop better fail-proof means of achieving the final goal.
- Fourthly, Broken Vessels Counseling also exercises personal accountability consistently as means of demonstrating and teaching the importance of self-accountability when you’re working towards your desired goal.
Nonetheless, through the entire journey experience with the life coach, Broken Vessels Counseling consistently maintains a 24/7 person-focused approach in all areas of the coaching relationship. It is imperative to note, Broken Vessels Counseling cannot provide anyone with mental health therapy while in coaching program, nor can we provide Life Coaching to anyone while they are in mental health therapy program.
Addiction Recovery
By incorporating various therapeutic methods and models in each session, the client will gain significant understanding and acceptance of how their addiction affects their lives and the lives of those around them. We also seek to help the client accurately identify which phase of the recovery cycle they are in (Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance, or Termination) and why they may be stuck in place.
Through family therapy, we help each immediate family member better understand the addiction and how to effectively address it in a healthy and safe manner. Through psychoeducation, the family gains stronger insight into how addiction warps a healthy relationship. The client and family also learn to develop healthy communication skills, build stronger boundaries, and establish grounds of accountability.
Serving Knoxville Patients During Their Time of Need
Through providing you with client-centered Individual Therapy, Family Therapy, and Peer/Mental Health Educational Group Therapy, I can better assist you to identify the who, what, and how aspects of your life journey to restoration and healing.
I am experienced with using such mental health therapy models as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to address anxiety, depression, grief, low self-esteem, and addiction.
Presently, I am conducting online sessions via telehealth media (Simple Practice) in response to the present COVID-19 pandemic social and health restrictions. I will be expanding services to mobile home visits (on a case by case basis/ emergency), and sessions in person via local office.
Presently, I am not able to bill insurance carriers, or diagnose clients because I am working towards earning my clinical mental health certification. However, I can still provide all basic counseling services, as governed by my current state license.