New Life Counseling Center 6001 Grelot Road, Mobile, AL 36609

"As someone who used these services during my childhood and now that I have attended therapy elsewhere for years and am training to be a clinical psychologist myself (PhD), I must remark that New Life's services can best be described as "a consistently horrible train wreck of an experience during which one will be lucky to exit alive (emotionally-speaking), all the while sustaining psychological injuries that create more trauma to be dealt later with by another clinician - and you STILL have to pay an exorbitant fee for the train ticket each and every time." Their services were so atrocious that I STILL REMEMBER how bad they were after more than 15 years, and I cared enough to finally write my review. Do any of you remember the quote, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" That's what will be expected of you if you use this service. The clinician's therapy model expertly accomplishes the following: invalidating and gaslighting clients' experiences, displaying an utter lack of consideration for scientific or ethical principles of counseling psychology, misusing Scriptures to create or increase a client's religious trauma, force-feeding clients the idea that God is a vindictive, hateful God and that clients themselves are evil, not at all being able to help clients deal with self-worth issues, and not at all being able to help clients gain and keep a deep sense of inner peace in their own skin. In other words, Richard's, the clinician's, therapy model is not science based (the same science that God made and that governs how the human mind works) and is, therefore, ineffective (and a waste of money) at best. Rather than empathically helping clients discover and deal with their innermost automatic thoughts, traumas, behaviors and emotions - the places where real change happens - the therapy model fails to accomplish this or any semblance of this goal. It utilizes basic psychology at such an elementary level as to be the same efficacy one could garner from a self-help book, which is to say, it doesn't help anybody change anything. Furthermore, the clinician fails to develop rapport and a sense of safety within the therapy room where the client, having developed trust, can relax and melt into. The clinician does not develop any deep or meaningful connection with the client. The client does not get to dictate, lean into, nor deal with the trauma they wish to in the way that the wish to; clients leave therapy feeling as if they have not been seen nor heard. The clinician constantly brings the conversation back to the clinician's own subset of religious views, preventing any kind of productive therapy work from taking place. I would like to reiterate that the clinician consistently gaslights, invalidates, and minimizes the client's emotional experiences and desires for therapy, opting instead to slap vague Scriptures like band-aids over deeply-rooted childhood trauma instead of utilizing good-faith cognitive behavioral therapy techniques. The therapy model, therefore, fails to address the deep issues that are going on for the client, and the client cannot achieve any deep and lasting change. TL; DR: New Life Counseling is a snake-oil vendor. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."

"I honestly gave this place a shot, I went 3 or 4 times and asked specifically that I don't have his beliefs involved in my mental health since im being forced into using a Christian "therapist". That lasted about 1 session until he just couldn't handle it anymore and had to pressure me into signing a paper that said he could. If you're Christian or whatever, I'm sure he can muster whatever bible verse to make you feel better for a bit, but if not you're out of luck."

"My husband and I spoke with Richard a couple years ago. He prays with you and uses Bible passages to base his instructions."

"Corrupt, deceitful"

"Amazing Biblically based Christian counselor!"