Richard Jones, MA, LPC

After graduating with a Building Science degree from Auburn University in 2008, I began working for a custom homebuilder in Montgomery, Alabama. As a newly married young man, this job taught me a great deal about hard work, honesty, and integrity, but somewhere deep down, without me even knowing it, I was slowly being crushed under the pressures of responsibility and performance. Did this mean I was weak? Did this mean I was a failure as a man? Why did it seem like I was the only man who felt this way? As men we are often taught to be tough, bold, and courageous, but we are seldom given the freedom to not have all the answers and to not have it all together.

In 2012, my wife, Alisa, and I moved to Orlando, Florida, where we attended Reformed Theological Seminary and both earned Masters of Arts degrees in Counseling. It was during this 3-year period, through counseling and a community of relationships, that God began to reveal how truly inadequate I felt as a man, especially as a husband. I began to see all the things I was running towards to make me feel adequate, and all the things I was running from that made me feel inadequate, in particular my marriage. One of my most influential supervisors while in school, Roger Shepherd, often said, “Maturity is learning from the emotions you have, rather than trying to get the emotions you want”. The reality that I don’t have it all together, the truth that I am not alone in my inadequacies, and the promise that God’s grace is most powerful in the midst of my failures, are the reasons why I desire to walk alongside men of all ages as they struggle through the unique weight of trying to adequately live out Biblical masculinity in today’s society.

From experiences in my own story, I also have a passion to work with couples, adolescents, and families who are dealing with issues of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, ADHD, pornography addiction, and lack of intimacy.

Contact:

rjones@hopecitycounseling.com or (334) 721-3592