IN-PERSON IN NASHVILLE & ONLINE ACROSS TENNESSEE
Religious Trauma Therapy in Nashville, TN
Finding your way back to yourself after religious and spiritual harm.
When the place that was supposed to offer belonging becomes a source of harm, the impact runs deep.
Religious and spiritual harm doesn't just live in your memories. It lives in your body, in your nervous system, in the ways you learned to shrink, perform, and silence yourself just to stay safe. It shows up in the guilt that surfaces without warning, the anxiety around making the wrong choice, the difficulty trusting your own instincts, and the grief of losing a community that was once your entire world.
And underneath all of that, often the most disorienting part: not knowing who you are anymore without the framework that once defined your world and identity.
This work might be for you if...
...you're carrying guilt or shame that doesn't seem to have an off switch
...you find it hard to trust your own instincts or make decisions without fear
...you've lost a community and aren't sure where you belong anymore
...your body still braces or shuts down around anything that reminds you of what you left
...you're rebuilding your sense of self and aren't sure yet who that person is
...you sense there's a freer, more grounded, more fully alive version of yourself on the other side of this
I’ve been there and I get it.
I was born into conservative evangelical culture and did all the things. Church at least three times a week, youth group, worship teams, working with a missions organization, leading small groups, serving on church boards. I am as fluent in churchspeak as I am in English.
When I realized I was gay, the experience was profoundly isolating. I had questions without easy answers, and I was handed responses that felt lazy, invalidating, and deeply wounding. The people I had once trusted became people I could no longer be honest or vulnerable with. Some turned away. Some turned against me. I felt othered in the places I had once felt most at home. And underneath all of that was something even more disorienting: I didn't know who I was outside of that bubble. The framework that had given my life shape and meaning was gone, and I had to rebuild my sense of self from the ground up.
What I needed, and what I couldn't find for a long time, wasn't someone interested in defending ideas or institutions. It wasn't someone who was going to tell me my pain wasn't valid or that they meant well. It wasn't another church.
What I needed was someone who would say:
“I believe you.”
“You don't need to convince me.”
“You make sense.”
That's what I offer. And I bring my own experience of this terrain alongside advanced clinical training in somatic psychotherapy and trauma-informed care. When you work with me, you don't have to translate yourself, explain your background, or wonder if I really understand the world you came from. You can just show up.
This goes deeper than belief. It lives in how you experience yourself and the world.
Religious trauma doesn't only affect your theology. It shapes your nervous system, your relationships, your body, and your sense of self at a fundamental level. The messages you absorbed, about who you are, what you deserve, what your body is for, what it means to question, live in the body as much as in the mind. They live in how you brace, how you shrink, how you silence yourself, how you relate to pleasure, desire, and your own instincts.
Somatic psychotherapy works at exactly this level. Together we'll work with what your body is holding, not just what your mind is processing, developing real skills for nervous system regulation, self-trust, and embodied presence. The goal isn't just to make sense of what happened. It's to help you reclaim the parts of yourself that got buried along the way, and to build a life that feels genuinely, freely yours.
What gets reclaimed
Coming home to yourself
Reconnecting with your own instincts, desires, and sense of self, not the one you were handed, but the one that was always underneath it. Learning to trust yourself again, in a way that may have felt out of reach for a long time.
Belonging that doesn't come at a cost
Building connections grounded in authenticity rather than performance or fear. Belonging that doesn't ask you to betray yourself to maintain it.
A body that feels safe to inhabit
Religious environments often teach us that our bodies are dangerous, shameful, or not to be trusted. This work helps you develop a different relationship with your physical experience, one grounded in curiosity, safety, and genuine self-compassion.
Fuller, more embodied aliveness
Not just healing from what was harmful, but stepping into a life that feels genuinely yours. Grounded in your own values, connected to your own experience, and free to be fully, unapologetically yourself.
A few things worth knowing
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Religious trauma includes the physical, emotional, and psychological impacts of religious beliefs, practices, or structures. It's less about specific events and more about how an individual's wellbeing continues to be affected over time.
Spiritual abuse refers to the ways that power is used in spiritual or religious settings to influence, control, or manipulate another person's body, thoughts, emotions, or capacity for choice and autonomy.
Examples include: forced accountability, public shaming, isolating, and control around decision making. It can also show up structurally, in environments shaped by homophobia, the devaluation of women, or a pervasive culture of fear and shame. Both can cause real, lasting harm, and both are taken seriously here.
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Yes. You don't have to have deconstructed or walked away to benefit from this work. Some people come in the middle of questioning, still connected to a community but feeling the tension between who they are and what's expected of them. Others are aware of a low-grade hurt they've never fully named or addressed. Wherever you are in that process, this work meets you there. You don't need a label for your experience or a clear narrative about what happened. If something in you resonates with what you've read here, that's enough to start a conversation.
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Not at all. I'm not here to undermine your belief system or make determinations about the role of faith or spirituality in your life. If you've read this far, you've probably already experienced more than your fair share of people doing exactly that. This isn't that place. I'm happy to have conversations about faith and spirituality that are important to you. What I won't do is tell you what to believe or what your relationship with spirituality should look like.
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Religious environments often shape us at a body level, through practices, rituals, fear-based teachings, and the chronic stress of navigating environments that weren't safe for all of who we are. That learning lives in the nervous system, not just in our thoughts and memories. Somatic psychotherapy works at exactly that level, helping you develop body awareness, nervous system regulation, and a more trusting relationship with your own physical experience.
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Schedule a free consultation. It's a relaxed, no-pressure conversation where you can ask questions, get a feel for how I work, and see if this feels like the right fit. I'd love to hear what's bringing you here.