Is Mental Health Healing Possible? | An Interview with Steven Shields

Steven W. Shields, ACMHC, CETII, CECII is a therapist, podcast host, speaker, executive coach, husband, and father who is adamant that true healing is possible and can happen now for everyone. He founded [ACCEPTED] to help clients struggling with addiction, trauma, depression, and anxiety. Through one-on-one1 therapy, groups, intensives, and workshops, clients experience healing.

Steven founded Unashamed Unafraid because he believes everyone’s story matters and each individual can be a beacon of hope. Unashamed Unafraid is a non-profit (501.3c) that shares recovery stories of hope, offers scholarships for resources, and creates community for those in recovery for sexual addictions and their families. He also serves on the executive team for Warrior Heart Ministries, a non-profit (501.3c) that runs spiritual retreats nationally to help men restore their hearts and connect with God.

Steven knows you can truly be healed and move forward because he's experienced it. While living the picture-perfect life with his beautiful family and serving in church leadership, he had a secret dual life battling with pornography and sexual addiction. Coming forward and confronting his shame was a journey that changed his heart, his profession, and his life.

Links

The Therapy Buffet: Helping Individuals Heal Through Therapy

Warrior Heart

Unashamed Unafraid

[ACCEPTED]

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Highlights

01:45 Introduction. Can mental illness be healed?

04:40 I’m not just a therapist but a guide.

06:10 What Steve is seeing most in his office. What are people dealing with the most?

13:00. When did we quit believing people can be healed? Why do we not believe that mental illness cannot be healed? People are led to believe that they just need to manage their mental health and it’s just something they will always struggle with.

20:20 Steve shares an experience he had working with a burned out therapist. You can’t give something that you don’t have.

26:00 As leaders we have to do things in the spirit of healing and love. We have to get back to what makes us feel alive and with the Spirit of God. You have to do your own work so you have something to give.

28:00 The weight that the bishop has to hold. Just to hold all the weight of everyone else's trauma you need God’s help and His healing. None of us are just all good.

29:30 We have example after example in the scriptures of mental health problems and the healing. Do we not believe that anymore? We don’t believe that we can be healed? It’s true that some things we have to endure but most things can be healed.

36:45 Therapy doesn’t heal you. Medication doesn’t heal you. The bishop, yoga class, friend,