Adrian Hickmon: What Makes This Make Sense?
What if Troubling Behavior Actually Began as a Solution?
You’ve tried everything. The therapists. The programs. The long nights searching for an answer that never comes. And still you watch your child slip further away, asking the question that haunts every parent in this place: How did we get here?
In What Makes This Make Sense?, Dr. Adrian Hickmon, founder of Capstone Treatment Center, offers something the revolving-door system rarely does—real hope, anchored by hard-won wisdom.
After decades walking alongside families in their darkest seasons, Hickmon has learned that the behaviors that frighten us most (the addiction, the rage, the numbing, the self-harm) are almost never the whole story. More often, they are survival strategies born in the dark caves of trauma, disconnection, and unspoken pain. His Core–Systems Model invites you past the labels and quick fixes and toward a single, life-changing question: What makes this make sense?
Through that question, blame gives way to understanding, and understanding opens the door to change.
This is a book for the fierce lovers and protectors, the parents, pastors, and therapists ready to lead with love and meet a struggling child where the pain actually began. It offers hope for families who feel stuck, hope for young people lost in the system, and hope for prevention for those with younger children still finding their way.
If you’ve ever looked at a child you love and wondered, “How do we overcome this and rebuild our hopes and dreams?”this book will help you find your way home.
What Makes This Make Sense?
A different way to understand troubling behavior, trauma, addiction, relationships, and the stories underneath them. Drawn from decades of walking alongside young people and families.
What if troubling behavior actually began as a solution?
You’ve tried everything. The therapists. The programs. The long nights searching for an answer that never comes. And still you watch your child slip further away, asking the question that haunts every parent in this place: How did we get here?
In What Makes This Make Sense?, Dr. Adrian Hickmon, founder of Capstone Treatment Center, offers something the revolving-door system rarely does: real hope, anchored by hard-won wisdom.
After decades walking alongside families in their darkest seasons, Hickmon has learned that the behaviors that frighten us most are almost never the whole story. More often, they are survival strategies born in the dark caves of trauma, disconnection, and unspoken pain.
His Core Systems Model invites readers past labels and quick fixes and toward a single, life-changing question: What makes this make sense?
Adrian Hickmon, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC, CSAT-S, CTT, CMAT-S, Dr. Adrian Hickmon is the Founder and Clinical Architect of Capstone Treatment Center in Searcy, Arkansas. Founded in 2001, Capstone has grown into one of the nation’s leading residential treatment programs for adolescent boys and young men, working with the whole family using the Core Systems Model that Dr. Hickmon developed.
Beginning in 1993, Dr. Hickmon developed the curriculum for the launch of the Marriage and Family Therapy Master’s Program at Harding University, where he served as a founding member of the faculty. He was a full-time professor until 2013, serving additional years as a part time member of the faculty. His academic teaching focused on graduate-level courses in Trauma, Addiction, Family and Marital therapy, and Group Processing and Experiential Therapy processes. With more than 25,000 hours of supervision and clinical experience, Dr. Hickmon has presented internationally on addictions, trauma, and marriage.
Dr. Hickmon holds a Ph.D. in Family and Child Development from Virginia Tech University, where his academic and research focus centered on marriage enrichment using experiential and adventure therapy modalities. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, and Drug & Alcohol Counselor. In addition, he is a Certified Trauma Therapist, a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist and Multiple Addiction Therapist, and a CSAT Supervisor.
Hickmon coached football for 14 years, 11 as head coach at Ouachita Christian High School in Monroe, Louisiana, where he was twice named the state’s Coach of the Year. A Harding University graduate, he was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2025, Dr. Hickmon received the Leadership Award from the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals, presented by founder Dr. Patrick Carnes. That same year, he was named him one of Arkansas’s Most Influential Leaders by Arkansas Business Magazine. He and his wife, Joanna, have been married for 50 years and are the proud parents of two daughters, twin sons, and eight grandchildren.
