Over decades of professional work combining faith-based interventions and state of the art mental health care, Dr. Karl and Pastor Charlotte have developed an approach to emotional healing that consistently resolves traumatic memories, and their resultant irrational beliefs and maladaptive behaviors. Since learning the Immanuel approach while in Dr. Lehman’s mentoring group for the past six years, I have employed this approach in my practice as a pastoral counselor and as a wilderness adventure counselor. The transformation that occurs when people are able to process and resolve their painful experiences is life-changing.

As I began using the Immanuel approach, the thought came to me that I could also bring this breakthrough into the realm of sports performance. If you have ever participated in sporting activities or contests at any level, you probably remember events in which, at a critical moment, a “random” thought or image flickered across the movie screen of you mind informing you of your impending failure. If I am resonating with the athlete within you, you probably have memories of these scenarios turning out poorly. And you know you were capable of a better performance. Imagine life without these failure thoughts. For this reason I am especially excited about the implications of the Immanuel approach for the field of performance enhancement. Even though this has not been a primary focus of the Lehman’s work, when those involved in sports begin to remove reactive triggering, their ability to perform increases in direct proportion to the resolution of irrational beliefs and unhelpful behaviors that had previously been caused by unresolved pain. I have used the Immanuel approach in my work as a life coach with athletes and coaches, and have seen dramatic, measurable positive results. Both athletes and coaches consistently discover increased capacity to perform as they eliminate self sabotaging thoughts and behaviors.

Mark Hattendorf
NCAA 2x Division I All-American,
Doctoral student, Regent University,
Pastoral Counselor,
Wilderness Adventure Counselor,
Life Coach.