Religious Trauma Therapy (Tennessee and Online)
Religious trauma doesn’t just stay in the past—it can shape how you think, feel, and relate to yourself long after you’ve left a religious environment.
The headlines might feel a little TOO familiar these days, as the folks running our country are reminding you of the authority figures of your childhood.
You’ve put some safe distance between your adult life and those religious spaces that felt too restrictive, but it’s feeling harder to cope.
You are so good at pretending to be fine, but you know that is becoming less and less true. The facade that’s kept you safe is crumbling.
What is religious trauma?
Religious trauma refers to the lasting emotional, psychological, and relational impact of growing up in or being part of a high-control, fear-based, or shame-based religious environment.
It can affect how you see yourself, your body, your relationships, and your sense of safety in the world—even years after leaving.
Many people don’t realize what they’re experiencing has a name. But once it does, things start to make more sense.
When relationships, career, and life are impacted by mental health
The anxiety in the back of your mind loudly tells you you’re not good enough, that you’ll never be good enough.
You’re too weird, too sensitive, ask too many questions.
You often feel guilty or like a failure, even though you are constantly packaging yourself to be smaller, nicer, better.
Your real self, with emotions and desires and needs, is too unpredictable, embarrassing, dangerous, maybe even feels lost to you.
So of course you struggle to make decisions.
Your people are misunderstanding you, or constantly criticizing you, or smothering you, but communicating that feels impossible.
Your identity isn’t fitting into the straight+cis+normal+well-behaved box that your family or boss expects you to live inside.
Of course you’re feeling isolated, unmotivated, anxious.
You’ve read the books, listened to the podcasts, built a workout routine, tried so fucking hard. Maybe went to therapy.
This isn’t just anxiety — it’s often the impact of religious trauma.
A lot of people come to therapy thinking they’re dealing with anxiety, low self-esteem, or burnout.
But those can be symptoms—not the root.
You may have been problem-solving the wrong problem.
Looking in the mirror and saying self-worth affirmations doesn’t tend to work when your earliest experiences were being told you were sinful, totally bad, so bad that someone you’ve never met had to die for you.
Labeling certain thoughts as coming from “cognitive distortions” just isn’t going to be as effective when you were taught that your mind is a dangerous place, and every thought was a possible sin.
Even doing trauma healing work isn’t going to provide lasting relief if it doesn’t address the inextricable component of a religious environment, belief, or leader from the trauma.
Learn more about therapy for faith deconstruction here: Therapy for Deconstruction
Therapy that addresses the religious roots of anxiety, panic, hopelessness, and self-doubt
Whether the harm from a conservative religious childhood shows up today like anxiety that never really goes away, the inability to make decisions or know your preferences, or tension with your family members, it’s real.
I specialize in working with adults navigating religious trauma and faith deconstruction. Let’s disentangle your mind, your body, your sexuality, your finances, your self from harmful beliefs you didn’t consent to being taught.
As a queer, neurodivergent therapist raised by fundamentalists in the South,
I get it.
All the trauma I’ve experienced happened in religious contexts or with people who were members of my religious community, and being able to work through it with a therapist who could name and understand that component was life-changing.
If you grew up in a conservative, evangelical, and/or fundamentalist religious environment, you deserve to receive therapeutic support from someone who speaks that language — someone for whom you do not have to translate.
Affirming therapy for your whole self
I have specific training and education around helping people heal from adverse religious/spiritual experiences as well as complex trauma. I also have lived experience of growing up in a religious setting that I had to leave for my own well-being and spend time healing from.
I would be honored to help you process your experiences with, and heal from, adverse religious/spiritual experiences, abuse, or trauma.
Bring your questions about things you were taught.
Bring your panic about fundamentalist Christians taking over the country for good.
Bring your disconnection with your true self, your sense of who you are and what you want.
Bring your guilt that never really goes away.
Bring your grief about what you didn’t get to have in your childhood.
Bring your frustrations with conservative family members.
Bring your shame and fear about your sexuality from purity culture.
Bring your existential hopelessness and dread.
You don’t have to filter or translate your experience here.
Therapy with me is a safe space to be questioning, venting, grieving, deconstructing or deconverting, healing from, and even re-integrating religion/spirituality.
What working with me feels like
Therapy with me isn’t about fixing you or telling you what to believe.
It’s a space where you can be honest about your questions, your anger, your grief, and your uncertainty—without being judged, rushed, or pushed in a particular direction.
Sometimes it looks like slowing down and making sense of what you’ve been through.
Sometimes it looks like untangling shame or getting out of thought loops.
Sometimes it looks like reconnecting with parts of yourself that had to go quiet to survive.
We’ll move at a pace that feels safe and sustainable, while still helping you make meaningful progress.
You don’t have to have it all figured out before you start.
For some people, religious trauma needs more space than a 45-minute session allows.
If you’ve felt like therapy just gets going right as it ends, or like there’s a lot to work through, Deep Work sessions may be a better fit. These extended sessions give us time to go deeper and stay with what’s coming up.
You can learn more about Deep Work sessions here.
Online Therapy for Religious Trauma Across Tennessee
I work with clients throughout Tennessee, including:
Learn about my approach to online therapy here: Online Therapy
The people in power who told you that you were bad, sinful, and worthless don’t have the final say.
Your experience of your body as shameful, broken, and dangerous doesn’t have to last your whole life.
Your desire for a loving relationship doesn’t have to be suppressed just because of the gender(s) of the people you’re attracted to.
Your sense of connection to something outside of yourself, a supportive community, and hope doesn’t have to be shattered forever.
Therapy for religious trauma can help you move toward a life that feels more grounded, more connected, and more fully your own.
References
Anderson, Laura (2023). When Religion Hurts You.
McBride, Hillary. Holy Hurt podcast, Ep. 1: “The House is Haunted.” July 2023. Transcript can be accessed at https://holyhurtpodcast.com/ep-01-the-house-is-haunted/.
Panchuk, Michelle (2018). The shattered spiritual self: a philosophical exploration of religious trauma. Res Philosophica, 95(3), 505-530.
Pasquale, Teresa (2015). Sacred Wounds: A Path to Healing from Spiritual Trauma.