Religious Trauma/Spiritual Abuse/Cult Recovery
Care For When There Are No Words
It’s really hard to walk away from a religious/spiritual group when you realize it’s unhealthy and potentially hurting you.
I would know having survived a cult before.
Trauma from harmful religious/spiritual experiences are a lot like any other trauma you might find.
Trauma is extreme stress in a situation where you feel unsafe. It doesn’t matter if it’s emotional or physical or both. Where religious/spiritual trauma differs from regular trauma is that it’s usually coming from people you thought were safe, shared your beliefs and values, and were your close community. It’s an incredibly deep betrayal that can result in very severe loneliness and isolation and, worst of all, deep shame.
The human brain/body cannot tell the difference between psychological threats or physical threats. It logs both experiences as physical threats just to be safe. Your brain/body would rather err on the side of being too cautious and protective for your physical safety that maybe get it wrong by saying “oh, it’s just psychological stress” and oops now you’re dead or seriously injured!
This is what makes religious/spiritual trauma so difficult. A lot of the time, it’s chronic psychological danger which can also be layered on top of physical danger. Ask me how I know.
No matter what you’ve been through, you’re not alone and you can find healing.
I’m not going to judge you. I remember how afraid I felt when I left. It’s taken me some time to be able to talk about my experiences so freely and to heal.
What I can promise you is that I will listen. Compassion. Patience (becuase it’s okay if this takes a while). Understanding. Open mindedness.
I can promise you therapeutic skills to actually help you begin to make sense of everything that’s happened and help you move forward in a way that makes the most sense for you.
It doesn’t matter what denomination you’ve come from. A cult is a cult. Religious abuse is religious abuse. Pain is pain. What I can promise you is that we’ll figure this out together and make the space you need to recover from what’s happened.
Give me a call at 720.260.4643 so we can get started and help you put more of this puzzle together.
Set Up Your Free Consultation!
Psychodynamic Therapy is what I will use for the majority of our work. This allows us to go at your pace and take our time understanding everything that has happened and what you need right now and moving forward. It’s a very good modality that has a lot of flexibility when beginning to tease apart the tangles of such a horrifying and truly saddening experience.
It also allows you time to build trust with me as your counselor/therapist (use whichever word works best for you). Religious/spiritual trauma often impacts our ability to trust others and I want to validate that this can take time to open up about again.
Give me a call at (720) 260-4643 for a free 15 minute consultation so that we can talk about how I can best support you.
In network with Aetna, United, Optum, Cigna, Oscar, Oxford, Lucent Health Summit County and Grand County Plans, Building Hope Scholarships, Olivia’s Fund, and Mountain Strong EAP insurance companies