Religious trauma is a real thing.

No matter how many people troll the internet to inaccurately argue  …”everyone has a little bit of church hurt” or “you were never a real believer after all” or “you just want to do what feels good to you instead of die to self”.

It is real because spiritual abuse and adverse religious experiences are real. Not everyone has a trauma response to what they encounter in a religious or spiritual context, but a lot of people do. You are not alone if you have.


If you know what it means to believe that your heart is deceitful, your mind fallen, your emotions dangerous, and your body sinful because of the feedback from your faith system then you can relate to the backdrop behind what religious trauma survivors are dismantling through their healing journey. Detangling dehumanizing beliefs from our psyche is hard work. If you have learned to not truly trust yourself, you probably know what it feels like to not give yourself permission to identify the truth found in your thoughts, feelings, and physical responses. The work I do is help you identify and navigate the tension.

Working with a religious trauma therapist is not just confronting religious beliefs with a therapist in the room. My focus is on helping you secure safety in your sense of self rather than effectively recalibrating or persuading the mind. Dehumanization needs humanization to heal so reconnecting you with your body, intuition, and identity is more the goal.

I lean on a combination of Person-Centered, Polyvagal Theory, Internal Family Systems, ACT, Narrative Therapy, and Somatic Therapy. All of this just means I will approach our time together with hope, acceptance, and curiosity while bringing science and research to the healing process. These approaches have meant so much to me and I hope they will you too.

​What you might be going through…

Your brave individuality is what gives you the strength to question and consider beliefs and their effects. Challenging often prompts change and this can be HARD! It really does feel great! However, maybe you feel a little lost because your reality is changing. Or you feel a little bit stuck because old messages and thought patterns are getting in the way of claiming your joy. You may be grieving the loss of now not knowing how to interact with your community or you may have fractured relationships with family and friends. You may struggle to achieve freedom and enjoy your sexuality as a result of purity culture. You may not be able to fully live your LGBTQI+ identity out loud. You may be extremely angry and struggle to deal with difficult emotions. You might even continue to be plagued by a deep and abiding fear of hell.

For these reasons and many more, you might find that you have become anxious, depressed, controlling, or feel a deep and abiding sense of pain that is hard to put to words. In some cases, what you’ve experienced may rise to the level of Religious Trauma. Whatever the level of pain, healing begins with a sense of safety.

​Healing Begins with Safety

Healing from an adverse religious past begins with establishing a sense of safety in your body, mind, and relationships.

Restrictive fundamentalism does much to undo our feeling of connectedness and safety within our self.

We will address how to feel safe in your body, safe in your thoughts, accepting and welcoming your emotions (all of them!), and feeling connected and safe with family and friends, and in community. 

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While the majority of people I work with are resolving and recovering from trauma stemming from adverse religious experiences, religious abuse, purity culture, toxic and harmful theology and doctrines, or deconstructing their systems of religious and spiritual beliefs, I specialize in trauma resolution and recovery, regardless of where the trauma originated.

 

Are you having symptoms of trauma related to adverse religious experiences?

What is Religious Trauma?

In order to describe Religious Trauma, we first have to define Trauma.

You may be surprised to learn that trauma is not “the event” that takes place such as a car wreck or violent encounter.

Instead, trauma is what happens inside a person’s body and mind afterwards.

Trauma is recognizable from a person’s symptoms.

Responses are the body’s way of signaling about unhealed psychological wounds from the event.

Religious Trauma describes the psychological and physical trauma symptoms in response to Adverse Religious Experiences.

Religious teachings and communities vary greatly across groups, so what one person interprets as an adverse experience may not be the same for another.

In fact, not every person exposed to an adverse religious experience has a resulting trauma experience.

It might be helpful to learn about some of the common themes of Adverse Religious Experiences, but there is a wide margin of situations, and details in this space.

Another variation includes a person’s age and length of exposure to a certain religious context.

 
 
 

DEFINITIONS

  • Any experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that undermines an individual's sense of safety or autonomy and/or negatively impacts ones physical, social, emotional, relational, or psychological well-being.

  • Spiritual abuse is the conscious or unconscious use of power to direct, control, or manipulate another’s body, thoughts, emotions, actions, or capacity for choice, freedom, or autonomy of self, within a spiritual or religious context.

  • The physical, emotional, or psychological response to religious beliefs, practices, or structures that overwhelm an individual’s ability to cope

  • Process of evaluation and altering ones previously held beliefs, lifestyle, relationship, or worldview.

    Often involves an inner examination of the ways you have internalized inferiority, superiority, power, and exploitation

  • Process of releasing and no longer claiming ones previously held religious beliefs or identity

  • Some symptoms only occur after the person has experienced life outside of the religious environment and been exposed to other ways of thinking and being.

    Symptoms can include bouts of intense panic, anxiety, depression, rage, fears/nightmares about going to hell, confusion, poor critical thinking ability, limited beliefs about self-ability/self-worth, difficulty allowing oneself to experience pleasure, black and white thinking, and sexual difficulties.

    You may feel anxiety about questioning your beliefs, trouble believing your own thoughts and feelings are valid, difficulty understanding healthy sexuality, and grief about questioning or detaching from a belief system that was seen as fundamental to your well-being.

 
 

Spiritual abuse does not have to be intentional to be abuse. The impact matters more than the intent. Spiritual abuse can happen in churches, families, or organizations, and often comes from someone you trust.

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Spiritual abuse does not have to be intentional to be abuse. The impact matters more than the intent. Spiritual abuse can happen in churches, families, or organizations, and often comes from someone you trust. 〰️

Someone’s “good intentions” do not negate abuse. Like other forms of abuse, spiritual abuse is about maintaining power and control over others.

It can come from anyone who claims to have the truth, who claims to speak for God or higher power, or has a special interest in your conformity to a belief system.

 

Harmful religious experiences can have long-term effects. Do any of the following resonate with you?

  • You spend a considerable amount of time considering how to do things right, wise, and faithfully in order to avoid being told you have lost faith or are bad

  • You felt a ton of freedom and joy when you found your way out, but now you feel alone and misunderstood. 

  • You feel like you don’t know exactly who you are now, or how to move forward. You feel stuck.

  • You struggle to say what you want and need to family and friends, or even know how to identify what you want and need.

  • You feel shame about your body and your sexuality because purity culture told you that you are shameful and sinful.

  • You hesitate to fully and outwardly express your sexual or gender identity. 

  • Your relationship with your family is suffering and you feel judged and rejected for who you are now.

  • You lie awake at night, struggling with fear about hell, even though you don’t think you believe in it. 

  • You are in a voracious reading and learning phase just to find that your angry and sad because of how it challenges you or the system you have been in.

  • You find it hard to separate what you were taught from who you want to be now or how you make decisions.

 

Religious Trauma Therapy Can Help You Get To A Better Place

Even if you feel lost or stuck, it’s possible to feel better. 

  • Reconnect with who you are outside of religion.

  • Find safety from painful relationships with family and friends.

  • Learn to honor and love your body, sexuality, sexual orientaiton, and gender identity.

  • Stop feeling shame and learn to love yourself.  

  • Get safe from emotional pain, anxiety, and fear.

Resolution : Helping individuals resolve trauma that is stored in the body, impacting your life and keeping you from living wholeheartedly.

Recovery: By focusing on recovery from each individuals unique experiences, we work towards providing a foundation of authentic living, relating, and moving through the world.

If you are experiencing symptoms related to religious trauma,

you deserve a safe place to do this work. Healing from religious trauma is possible!

I work with clients from a trauma trained orientation which means increased focus on the ways that trauma impacts the body and the mind, as well as access to clinical interventions specific to healing trauma. Treating Religious Trauma means that we account for the needed safety in the therapy relationship, as well as increasing trust within one’s own capacity to sit with emotions and body sensations before working through trauma.

  • When we come together in regular sessions, we begin to dismantle the messages you received about yourself that were toxic and shame-producing. 

    We talk about boundaries, self-compassion, mindfulness meditation, what religious trauma is, what a trauma response feels like, how to move through difficult emotions, and what it actually means to “feel your feelings”. We’ll talk about how to heal past wounds, handle your grief, resolve trauma, and move forward to a life very much worth living. 

    I am always striving to work within your comfort zone while safely inviting you to take one step further. It can feel overwhelming and vulnerable at first, but you will soon feel that you are in charge of the pace we take things. I will definitely challenge you, but will also affirm you every step of the way.

  • I work from an informed position about Adverse Religious Experiences. Clients with Religious Trauma often feel apprehensive that a therapist won’t understand or support their experience associated with religion or worse that they might frame the therapy relationship with their own religious bias. An uniformed therapist’s religious bias can leave clients feeling misunderstood, or further isolated in their experiences.

    I understand religious trauma from my personal context. I have pursued therapy on my own journey with this experience and continue to pursue both professional and personal guidance while continuing in this space. I will work within the framework of your current religious or spiritual worldview (or none at all). I am open to discussing the parts of my experience that could be helpful in fostering a trusting therapeutic relationship. I’m also happy to discuss any questions or concerns you might have before starting therapy for Religious Trauma. Feel free to reach out and learn more!

  • Not at all! I support every person’s ability to access whatever religious or spiritual practices they find helpful and meaningful. Much of therapy includes holding two opposite beliefs at once. Religion follows this route as, there can be both good and bad within any context. I find there is value in making room for all the sides of these narratives both individually and as a therapist.

    I am anti-harm, -abuse, -control, -power, but not anti-religion. I believe each person is unique, including what is valuable and important for them in matters of faith, religion and spirituality. It is not my place or goal to determine what your faith, religion, or spiritual practices or lack of should be. While discussing faith and faith systems are a welcome part of the therapeutic process, the goal is for you to define what is meaningful and important so authentic expression of your lived values can be the byproduct in your life.

  • That is a great question! The short answer is, that is not a problem. If you need to process a religious experience but do not have symptoms of trauma, you still deserve a safe place to share and explore what this means to you! I work with clients on religious exploration and transitions as well as trauma.

  • This is for anyone who wants to work through their unique journey surrounding religion. Clients of any denomination, orientation or belief system are welcome here. If finding a therapist with a specific religious orientation is valuable to you, I will be glad to send you references in the local community that would fit your preferences!

  • I see clients from mainstream religious backgrounds, less common religious systems, cult practices, and more. If there is additional information I need to understand your unique journey, I will do my best to learn from you and other sources of information so that you feel supported and understood.

  • A few places to start might be:

    www.religioustraumainstitute.com

    www.reclamationcollective.com

    www.daretodoubt.org/religious-trauma-syndrome

 
 

Change

Life happens. Shift happens. Sometimes life changes with or without our gracious consent.

Fear

A season of questioning religious systems and beliefs can be excruciatingly painful. The newness can feel unsafe and dangerous. Or perhaps lonely and isolating. The fear of rejection from God and from others feels suffocating as emotions such as shame, guilt, fear, anger, and sadness take center stage. The consequences of such a prismatic array of emotions are sleepless nights, hiding, pretending, unhealthy addictions, isolating, ruminating, disordered eating and engaging in a whole variety of other coping behaviors.

Claim

A faith shift doesn’t mean you are a bitter, prodigal son or daughter who chose to take all the beautiful things you learned, along with your rich inheritance of the Christian faith, only to squander it in some big debauched and satanic soirée. Instead, you have come to realize that certain elements of current religious principles, practices, policies, and/or attitudes no longer feel congruent with who you are becoming.