counseling for Religious trauma and deconstruction
Leaving a conservative religious environment is hard.
Whether you are contemplating leaving, in the process of leaving, or have left your religion long ago, you may be feeling the effects of leaving a community that has impacted your mental health due to its high demand or high control belief system. Many people leaving a rigid environment such as a high control or high demand religion experience anxiety, depression, grief, self-doubt, anger, guilt, shame, and fear, among many other emotions and mental health effects. Many of these communities are conservative in ideology and can be harmful if you hold any marginalized identity, such as being female, part of the LGBTQIA+ community, a person of color, or a neurodivergent person.
I help people build confidence and discover their authentic selves after leaving or changing a religion, particularly after leaving a high-control and high-demand religion. In this community you may have received many harmful messages about how you are not good enough, how you must work hard and suffer in order to experience peace and happiness, and/or how you aren’t safe unless you stay in your religious community. It can be challenging to move through the emotions and guilt that can come from leaving, and I want to help you navigate that path and hopefully find the freedom that can come from being more in charge of your spiritual life.
These experiences are sometimes called religious trauma, but you don’t necessarily have to know if your experience was traumatic to utilize counseling to address your religious experiences. I work with people who have experienced a range of mental health effects from their time in a religious community. Some people do experience trauma symptoms after leaving a religion, while others need a therapeutic space to make sense of life after high demand religion, but don’t necessarily see their time in high demand religion as traumatic.
You want to unlearn shaming messages, build your self-confidence, and connect with your authentic self and your personal values.
Through one on one counseling via my telehealth practice for Texas residents, we’ll explore together what you uniquely need in order to move past the adverse religious experiences you’ve encountered. We’ll explore together unhelpful messages you may have internalized and unlearn shame around who you are. We will deconstruct what you’ve been taught that no longer aligns with your values. We’ll explore how to assert boundaries and communicate more effectively with people who are not accepting of your choices around religion, and how to build relationships that are accepting of your authentic self.
You may also want to explore how your religious experiences have impacted your understanding of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, and other systems of oppression. If you belong to an oppressed community, this may involve unlearning shame and harmful messages that you’ve been taught about your identity, and if you’ve been taught to fear and have bias towards particular groups, you may find it helpful to utilize counseling to work towards unlearning those beliefs. This may involve grieving and making sense of the time you spent either disowning parts of yourself or of time you spent perpetuating harm towards others – this is tough work, but so valuable. I believe it’s never too late to do this work and find a more inclusive and accepting outlook.
I know how challenging this can be, because I’ve been there.
I grew up in a restrictive religious environment and internalized a lot of shaming and unhelpful messages that I carried into my adult life. I spent years working through intense emotions and self-doubt as I left my religious community. I sometimes struggled to speak up to the people in my life because of the pressures I felt to continue practicing the faith I was raised in. I eventually found my way to more self-confidence, peace, authenticity, and honest relationships, and an internal compass that guided me towards my own values. In my young adulthood, I wasn’t aware that I could go to therapy to help me through this, and I never heard terms like “religious deconstruction”. I’m so happy our culture is shifting and we are starting to talk about this and the value of naming and addressing the mental health effects of changing or leaving religions and I want to help others feel less alone in this journey than I felt.
Your next steps are up to you.
People who get out of rigid and controlling environments sometimes struggle to know what they want. You may want to keep elements of your religious life, you may want to find spirituality without religion, or you may no longer wish to engage in religion altogether. I aim to give you the space to explore all options, and find what is best for you. Our Western culture often encourages us to be sure of our beliefs, and I find it helpful to challenge this perfectionistic way of being. I fully support you not knowing what you want, changing what you want, or keeping your religion but with a better sense of your own autonomy.
I personally consider myself non-religious, and I find it helpful to be up front with potential clients about this as some people find it helpful to work with a non-religious counselor to give them space outside of their religious community to explore their options. I’m also aware that some people have experienced harm and stress while in counseling with a religious therapist, and so it’s important to me to be clear about my perspective – you won’t get any surprise scripture from me! With that being said I’m fully supportive of you landing in whatever religious or spiritual affiliation is right for you – being non-religious myself does not make me anti-religious.
If you are struggling with complicated feelings after leaving a religion, schedule your twenty minute free phone consultation to explore if we may be a good fit to work together, or visit my FAQ page to learn a little more about what it’s like to work with me. I offer video therapy for adult residents of Texas.
Related blog posts:
How to get over Catholic guilt
Why does religion make me angry?
How to be ok with being disliked after religious deconstruction
Three unexpected ways anger shows up after religious trauma
How do I get over binary thinking after religious trauma?
How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help you rebuild your life after religious trauma