Therapy Support
What is therapy?
Therapy is a supportive space where you can explore your thoughts, emotions, and experiences with a trained professional whose role is to help—not judge, fix, or direct you. It’s a process that focuses on understanding patterns, healing emotional wounds, and building skills for coping and growth. Therapy centers your autonomy, values, and lived experience, allowing you to move at your own pace and toward your own goals.
Therapy for Religious Harm?
The private, client centered element of therapy can be especially valuable when addressing religious harm. Therapists are trained to recognize complex dynamics and can help unravel mixed emotions. They understand relational abuse, patterns of control, and the effects of trauma. Therapy is flexible and can offer small, achievable tools along the way—even when a problem feels overwhelming or unsolvable.
Finding A Therapist
Trained in Religious Harm
(filter for LGBTQIA+ affirming,trauma-informed, religious trauma, ex-religious, cults, etc.)
(filter for LGBTQIA+ affirming,trauma-informed, religious trauma, ex-religious, cults, etc.)
Do you need help getting connected to therapy support?
Book a consult
Top 10 Challenges of Starting Therapy After Religious Harm
1. Power dynamics can feel uncomfortably familiar.
Therapists hold expertise, which may echo the hierarchy of a pastor or church leader. This can trigger
fears of judgment, pressure to please, or difficulty asserting your own needs.
2. Vulnerability may feel unsafe.
High-control religion often demanded confession and emotional exposure without protecting the
person. Therapy’s invitation to be open may feel risky or obligatory.
3. The belief “there’s something wrong with me and therapy will fix it” may be ingrained.
Many people were taught they are inherently broken or untrustworthy. Therapy can reactivate this
pattern, even though modern therapy is collaborative—not corrective.
4. Fear of being judged or misunderstood.
Clients may fear being seen as bad if they came from a shame based system of belief.
5. Difficulty trusting your own perceptions.
Religious systems often trained members to distrust their feelings or instincts. Therapy asks you to
reconnect with inner signals you were taught to silence.
6. Fear of another authority figure controlling your life.
Clients may worry a therapist will impose beliefs, minimize trauma, or pressure reconciliation with
religion.
7. Discomfort with emotional expressions.
Emotions like anger or grief may have been labeled sinful, leading to guilt or fear when these arise in
therapy.
8. Confusion about boundaries.
High-control religion blurred boundaries; therapy may bring questions like “Am I allowed to disagree?”
or “Do I have to tell them everything?”
9. Distrust of institutions or professionals.
After institutional harm, clients may fear exploitation or hidden agendas in therapy.
10. Therapeutic language can feel triggering.
Words such as healing, surrender, forgiveness, or transformation may carry religious baggage.
Bonus: 11. Pressure to be the “perfect client.”
Echoing the perfect believer mentality, some clients try to perform therapy correctly or avoid
disappointing the therapist.
Red Flags in Therapy
Not all therapists may not be the right fit for someone healing from religious harm. Here are some things to look out for.
They insert their own religious beliefs or try to redirect you toward religious concepts
They minimize your experience: “It couldn’t have been that bad,” “All churches aren’t like that,” etc.
They pressure you to forgive, reconcile, or adopt spiritual meanings you don’t hold
They show rigidity, strong personal agendas, or discomfort with exploring trauma related to belief systems
They misunderstand or dismiss the nature of high-control religious groups
They pathologize normal trauma responses or don’t believe religious trauma exists
They do not work to address power dynamics in therapy (ie. therapist as expert/healer/authority figure)
They are unsupportive of your therapy goals or your needs for pacing therapy