Our Services - Counseling, Psychiatry, and Psychological Assessment
Counseling
At Heartland Christian Counseling, we are committed to helping people with evidence based best practices in the field of psychology. We are also deeply committed to the integration of Christian faith and spiritual matters whenever desired and appropriate in treatment with our clients.
We treat mental health conditions, such as severe anxiety, depression, trauma recovery, acute stress, relationship distress, mood disorders, grief and loss, perinatal mood and anxiety, pain management, and more.
Our clinicians are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Family Systems, Healthy Boundaries, Mindfulness, and Good Grieving through Reprocessing & Forgiveness Therapy. We encourage our clients to grow a healthy sense of self and purpose, to effectively use positive coping skills, and to develop social and spiritual supports.
Dr. Heidi Vermeer-Quist also offers Gardening Your Life a personal growth series which can be used in Group Therapy, Individual Therapy, or on your own (preferably with a small group). {Learn More}.
Current Therapy Groups:
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Gardening Your Life: Grounding for Adults. (See linked flyer). Held on Mondays at the Prairie Ridge Church in Ankeny, 6:00pm-7:30pm. 10 week course.
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Gardening Your Life: Grounding for Adults. (See linked flyer) Held on Wednesdays at the Heartland Christian Counseling in West Des Moines, 6:00pm-7:30pm. 10 week course.
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Gardening Your Life: Grounding for Adults. (See linked flyer). Held on Tuesdays at the Heartland Christian Counseling in Pella, 5:30pm-7:00pm. 10 week course.
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Gardening Your Life: Grounding for Teens. (See Linked Flyer) No groups currently running.
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Gardening Your Life: Grieving. (See linked flyer) No groups currently running.
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Beyond the Baby Blues. (See linked flyer) Held on Tuesday evenings the West Des Moines office. 6pm-7:30pm. Runs for 8-10 weeks. Led by Jill Thomas.
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Pain Group. (See linked flyer) Held on Fridays at 1:30pm in West Des Moines. Led by Barb Graham, LISW
For more information, call:
West Des Moines office at 515 331 0303
Pella office at 641 628 9599
Psychiatry
Heartland Christian Counseling employs two medication providers who specialize in psychiatric medication management. Seeing patients 6 years and older, they strive to provide quality care for all patients.
Our medical staff works closely with our therapists to make sure that each patient receives well rounded care according to his or her needs.
More Services Offered
Heartland Christian Counseling provides outpatient counseling and therapy for children, adolescents, adults and older adults. Our staff is clinically trained in psychology and social work best practices. All are either fully licensed in Iowa or in the midst of clinical supervision for licensure.
Services:
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Counseling and therapy for individuals, couples and families covering most mental health and relational concerns
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Psychological assessment of ADHD, intellectual disabilities, pre-surgical procedures, and differential diagnoses (See below)
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Group therapy and support groups
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Premarital assessment and counseling
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Referral to other treatment or programs including inpatient and partial hospitalization
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT
What IS psychological assessment? Psychological assessment is a gathering information using a variety of tests and questionnaires. Often psychological assessment is used to clarify diagnosis for therapists and medication providers. One of our most frequent referrals is to assess for possible ADHD, but we also provide psychological assessments for career guidance (including pastoral and ministry readiness), people seeking to adopt, those seeking bariatric surgery, or to determine qualification for intellectual disability waivers. Our typical adult assessment battery is very comprehensive and includes a brief IQ test, a test of simple sustained attention, a test of frontal lobe executive functioning, a MMPI-3 (which assesses for a very wide variety of pathology) and a MCMI-IV (which assesses for possible personality disorders). Therefore we are able to determine diagnosis or at least clarify diagnoses between disorders such as ADHD, bipolar, anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, personality disorders, and psychotic disorders – all of which can present in similar ways at times.
Who might be a good candidate for being referred for testing? We are able to test clients as young as 5 years old, but it is often more advantageous to wait (if possible) until age 7 because we are able to use a wider variety of assessments.
Who is NOT a good candidate?
Unfortunately at this time we cannot test clients with Medicaid insurance or children younger than 5 years of age. We also do not typically do any court ordered assessments. Finally, we are not able to offer assessment of autism, learning disorders, neurological disorders (such as Alzheimers), or pre-surgical evaluations other than bariatric surgeries (such as gender confirmation surgery, spinal stimulation surgeries, etc.).