Faith & Sexuality Counseling in Katy, TX
Counseling for Faith and Sexuality
Some people find that their faith and their sexuality don’t sit together easily. That tension is real, it’s often carried alone, and it deserves somewhere honest to be worked through — not somewhere with a predetermined answer.
At Here Comes The Sun Counseling in Katy, Texas, we offer counseling for people navigating questions about sexual or gender identity in the context of Christian faith. We’re licensed clinicians. We’re also Christians. We hold both of those carefully.
What We Offer, Plainly Stated
We do not provide conversion therapy, reparative therapy, or any form of treatment aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. These practices are rejected by every major mental health professional body, including the American Counseling Association, whose ethical code governs our licenses. The research on them shows harm, not benefit.
We also don’t work from the opposite assumption — that anyone who experiences tension between faith and sexuality is simply suffering from internalized shame that therapy should dissolve. For many of our clients, faith is not an external pressure imposed on them. It’s the most important commitment in their life, and they want a counselor who can hold that as real.
What we offer is the space between those two positions: a place to think clearly, without someone steering you toward a conclusion.
You are the one who decides how you will live. That’s not a disclaimer, it’s the actual clinical stance. Our job is to help you understand yourself well enough to make that decision from a settled place rather than a frightened one.
Who Comes to Us
- Adults who have experienced same-sex attraction for years and have never told anyone
- People whose faith community’s position and whose own experience are in direct conflict
- Christians experiencing gender dysphoria who want somewhere to think without being rushed
- Parents whose child has come out, trying to figure out how to love well
- Married people navigating attractions they didn’t expect
- Teenagers, with parental involvement appropriate to their age
- People who have already left, or been asked to leave, a church over this
How We Work
We draw on the sexual identity therapy framework developed by Dr. Mark Yarhouse, a psychologist whose research focuses specifically on the intersection of faith and sexual identity. The framework is deliberately non-prescriptive: it distinguishes between attractions (which a person doesn’t choose), orientation (a persistent pattern), and identity (how someone understands and labels their experience, and how they choose to live in light of their values).
Marisa Cockrell, our founder, trained directly under Dr. Yarhouse in this model.
That distinction matters because it separates questions that get collapsed together constantly, usually to someone’s cost.
What We’ll Actually Explore
- Your experience, described accurately. Before anything else, getting clear on what’s actually true for you rather than what you’ve been told is true.
- Your faith, in specifics. Not “what Christians think,” but what you believe, where it came from, and which parts you hold with conviction versus inherited without examination.
- The cost of secrecy. Most people arrive having carried this alone for years. That isolation has its own effects, separate from the underlying question.
- Shame, distinguished from conviction. These feel similar and function completely differently. Shame says I am bad. Conviction says I want to live a certain way. Untangling them is often the central work.
- Relationships. With family, spouse, church, and community — including the real practical question of who to tell and when.
- What you want your life to look like. Which is your call, and which we’ll help you reach thoughtfully.
What We Won’t Do
- We won’t tell you what to conclude
- We won’t set a goal for your orientation to change
- We won’t treat your faith as pathology
- We won’t treat your attractions as a spiritual failure
- We won’t rush you toward a resolution you’re not ready for
- We won’t disclose anything you tell us — confidentiality here is the same as in any other clinical relationship, and we take it seriously
For Parents
If your child has come out and you’re trying to figure out what to do, you’re welcome here too.
Most parents in this situation are managing several things at once: their own beliefs, real fear about their child’s future, grief for a version of the future they’d imagined, and — usually underneath all of it — a strong desire not to lose their kid. Those can be worked with. They don’t have to be sorted out privately before you ask for help.
We work with parents individually and with families together.
Meet Our Therapists
MARISA COCKRELL, MA, LPC - FOUNDER
I am passionate about working with individuals and couples, teens and adults who find themselves struggling with anxiety, depression, grief, and their sexuality or gender. I work to create an environment of connection and care, without judgment, where clients can come to a better understanding of themselves and how they relate to others. I believe the therapist and client work together as a team to find and process ways to better cope with the pain in one’s life.
I hold a Masters in Biblical Counseling from Dallas Theological Seminary. I am EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) trained. I am certified as a facilitator with Prepare and Enrich and I am certified in Restoration Therapy, Level 1. I also have extensive training under Dr. Mark Yarhouse in navigating sexual and gender identity for people of faith and training in Narrative theory work with Dan Allender.
Together, we will explore and address current concerns, as well as work to discover how the coping skills client’s have developed since childhood are causing stumbling blocks for them today.
ABIGAIL FONTENOT, MA, LPC ASSOCIATE
Supervised by Pam Cosart, LPC-S, MA, LCDC
Supervised by Pam Cosart, LPC-S, MA, LCDC
I believe that everyone has a unique, intricate and beautiful story that is waiting to be told. There are times when we just need a safe place that provides opportunities to understand the complexities, and experiences within our lives. Counseling can be that place! I enjoy working with people across the lifespan including early adolescence, teens and adults. My heart is with those suffering from the effects of traumatic experiences, struggling in relationships, dealing with depression, anxiety or disordered eating and those navigating sexual issues. Each one of us longs for wholeness, to be known and to find peace. Perhaps it’s in your current stress, unhelpful thoughts, or confusing feelings. Life contains an array of experiences which shape who we are. It can be overwhelming to make connections and find healthy rhythms for ourselves. If you are seeking healing for yourself through counseling, that is a courageous first step! Healing can happen when we take time to understand to our stories. I consider it an honor to sit with people as they learn to fully pay attention to themselves and honor their lives.
I employ counseling techniques from a biblically integrated perspective using approaches from person-centered therapy, existential therapy, and restoration therapy. I believe that the counseling relationship is essential to the therapeutic process. Walking alongside clients through their pain, and questioning is a privilege for me. I view my role to be partnering with clients on their healing journey and finding ways to encourage and facilitate personal growth. Allowing someone to weed through the brokenness with you is a commendable thing that is not to be taken lightly. I believe that learning to live life with God is what is most transformational. He is the source of contentment, comfort and light. Holding the hope that only He offers is what I love to do for clients who are seeking to take hold of that hope for themselves.
I hold a masters degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, and I am an LPC-Associate under supervision of Pam Cosart, LPC-S.
Marisa has extensive training under Mark Yarhouse in sexual and gender identity for people of faith, so she is usually who we suggest first. Abigail also works with clients navigating these questions — so there is more than one door in. If a schedule does not fit or a person does not feel right, say so and we will help you land in the right place.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FAITH & SEXUALITY
DO YOU PROVIDE CONVERSION THERAPY OR REPARATIVE THERAPY?
No. We do not provide conversion therapy, reparative therapy, or any intervention aimed at changing sexual orientation or gender identity. These approaches are opposed by the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, and the evidence indicates they cause harm. If that’s what you’re looking for, we’re not the right practice.
WILL YOU TELL ME THAT ACTING ON MY ATTRACTIONS IS WRONG?
No. We won’t tell you it’s wrong and we won’t tell you it’s fine. Those are conclusions about your own life and values, and they’re yours to reach. What we’ll do is help you get clear enough on what you actually believe and actually want that the decision is yours rather than something that happened to you.
WHAT IF I WANT TO LIVE ACCORDING TO A TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN SEXUAL ETHIC?
That’s a legitimate choice and we’ll support you in it. Some of our clients hold convictions that lead them toward celibacy or toward a marriage that includes this complexity. Supporting someone in living according to their own values is different from trying to change their orientation, and we’re clear about that distinction.
WHAT IF I DON’T HOLD A TRADITIONAL VIEW?
Also welcome. We work with clients across the range of theological positions, including people who’ve moved away from where they started and people still working it out.
WHAT IS THE YARHOUSE FRAMEWORK?
Dr. Mark Yarhouse is a psychologist who developed sexual identity therapy — a framework for working with clients experiencing conflict between religious faith and sexual identity. Its distinguishing feature is that it’s explicitly non-prescriptive: the therapist doesn’t hold a goal for the client’s outcome, and instead helps the client make an informed, values-congruent decision themselves. It’s the recognized ethical approach to this work.
DO YOU WORK WITH TEENAGERS?
Yes, with appropriate parental involvement. We’re especially careful here. Adolescence is a period of genuine identity development, and a teenager needs room to think without adults on any side pushing toward a conclusion.
IS THIS CONFIDENTIAL? I’M WORRIED ABOUT PEOPLE FINDING OUT.
Yes. Everything you discuss is protected under the same confidentiality that governs any clinical relationship, with the standard legal exceptions around imminent danger. We don’t disclose to your church, your family, or anyone else.
I’VE BEEN TOLD BY A THERAPIST THAT MY FAITH IS THE PROBLEM. WILL THAT HAPPEN HERE?
No. We’re Christians ourselves and we take faith seriously as a genuine commitment rather than a symptom. Faith can be a source of shame in some contexts, and where that’s happening we’ll look at it honestly — but that’s different from treating your belief as the thing to be treated.