About Karen Chambless

You've spent a long time figuring out how to manage. How to get through hard things, hold it together, keep going — and make it look easy.

Your strategies were working, until something shifted, and now they aren’t working the way it used to. You're doing the same things with worse results and you're not sure what to do instead.

Therapy with me is a place to figure that out — without anyone telling you what the answer should be.

I'm Queer and neurodivergent myself. I know what it's like to build a whole system of coping strategies just to function in a world that wasn't designed for you — and I know what it feels like when that system stops holding.

I also grew up in church and in the South. I still have positive memories of feeling part of something larger than myself and a deep spiritual connection. And I’ve spent years of my life realizing that much of what I'd been taught wasn't true, wasn't mine, and had cost me more than I knew.

That process was disorienting and lonely. It's part of why I do this work. A lot of people I work with carry something similar — the kind of history that shapes how you learned to survive, even if you didn't have words for it at the time.

A lot of people come in expecting therapy to feel like homework — like there's a right way to do it and they'll probably mess it up. It doesn't feel like that here.

Mostly we talk. You don't have to have everything figured out before we start.

You just have to be willing to be honest — and I'll meet you there.

Schedule a free consult call

Learn more about Therapy for Religious Trauma

Learn more about Therapy for Deconstruction

Learn more about me, if you’ve scrolled this far: 

    • I’m a Scorpio Sun and stellium with Aquarius Moon and Rising

    • I’m an Enneagram 2-4-8 tritype with a strong 3 wing. 

    • My favorite book of 2025 was The Antidote by Karen Russell 

    • My favorite video game is Stardew Valley

    • My comfort TV shows include Letterkenny, Bob’s Burgers, and British murder mysteries. 

  • Some of my favorite things about Chattanooga are: always being able to see mountains, the scenic train rides on the Tennessee Valley Railroad, the jellyfish and large-tank rooms at the aquarium, our historic buildings downtown and how the city is colorful in different ways all through the year. 

    I love how many truly good and caring people live in Tennessee, despite being a state where oppressive legislation feels suffocating and most folks have to struggle to get by.

  • Because I know my neurodivergence and Queerness are inextricably tied to who I am and how I experience the world, I practice “identity-first” therapy.

    You won’t just be treated as Jane Smith who has xyz symptoms of anxiety and grew up Southern Baptist.

    We’ll always consider how your gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, neurotype, socioeconomic class, family history, religious traditions, body size, and other aspects of your identity are coming into play with what’s going on.

    We’ll always name how capitalism, consumerism, white supremacy, patriarchy, fascism, and diet culture are interacting with your nervous system.

Karen Chambless, LPC-MHSP — Religious Trauma Therapist in Tennessee

I am a licensed professional counselor (LPC-MHSP) in Tennessee providing online therapy for religious trauma, faith deconstruction, and complex trauma.

I have:

  • a master’s degree in counseling from an accredited program

  • over 3,000 hours of supervised clinical experience

  • 5+ years of therapy practice

I specialize in working with adults healing from religious trauma, particularly those from evangelical, fundamentalist, or high-control religious environments.

I am a LGBTQ+ and neurodivergence-affirming provider, with additional experience supporting clients exploring queer identity, gender, and neurotypes such as ADHD, Autism, and High Sensitivity. I identity as Queer & Highly Sensitive and am passionate about supporting folks with queer and neurodivergent identities to grow and heal and be their whole magical selves.

My approach to religious trauma & deconstruction therapy

  • Affirming

  • Non-pathologizing

  • Secular and spiritually neutral

  • Understanding and informed about evangelical and fundamentalist culture

  • Identity-first - we name and consider the intersections of all your identities