If I could give no stars I would.
Please avoid Dan Sheaffer…read moreat all costs.
My marriage suffered more strain from our visits with Dan.
He strung us along with promises of what he had plans to implement in our counseling then those plans never seemed to come to fruition ,conveniently for him , while he charged us $100 per hour session.
It seemed fairly obvious he never desired to prepare for our sessions, but hoped to provide us with elementary "worksheets" or behavioral exercises that would consume the hour session leading to the next week.
We were charged more money for a Prepare and Enrich online survey which was supposed to be used in guiding our marriage counseling yet over a month after finishing it, we actually had to basically beg to go over it (which we still never did).
For someone who claims to be a "Christian counselor" it was also odd that he only ever referenced scripture on two minor 2 minute occasions in our 8 separate hour sessions and both times his references to them were puzzling or superficial at best.
We expressed personal history of sexual trauma , family abuse, suicidal ideations, intimacy issues in marriage, issues with addictions, all of which were hardly addressed over 8 sessions. There was always a promise of " we are going to get into that in a future session" or a light encouragement of " hang in there" even when the strain of the burden of coming to a nightly session which we had to bring our 5-8 month old child to (of no fault to him) became evident, but we would met with more apparent "winging it" with regards to the direction of sessions. We always left sessions more confused, more bitter, more exhausted, and more hopeless. At our final session , at which we expressed concerns about discontinuing counseling or seeking help elsewhere and trying to make our issues again evident, Dan essentially flipped the responsibility back onto us, shut down, did not attempt to even counsel us any further, basically letting us talk out the remaining 40 minutes , said that if we wanted to go through our Prepare and enrich survey we paid for a month prior that it would take 3 to 4 more hundred dollar sessions, and that basically if we didn't want to attend counseling it was on us. Our marriage has actually improved since STOPPING counseling with Dan, by the grace of God, but it is still extremely disheartening to be so vulnerable and open and desperate with a counselor who seemed only interested in making profit and offering empty promises. I honestly pray I am wrong about his character and I attempted out of desperation to remain hopeful the entire process yet that hope dwindled quickly; I admit my personal and marital struggles are not his responsibility, but if this is what counseling is supposed to be, I highly recommend you look elsewhere for support / guidance.