CHURCH HURT & RELIGIOUS TRAUMA · BURBANK & ONLINE IN CALIFORNIA
When the church hurts you
For the woman who was wounded by the place that was supposed to feel like home. You don't have to sort out what you believe before you're allowed to heal from what happened.
IN-PERSON IN BURBANK, CA
ONLINE ACROSS CALIFORNIA
This might be for you if
You don't need the right label for it before you're allowed to get help with it
✓ Something happened at church — you just don't know what to call it yet
✓ You were hurt by a pastor, leader, or community you trusted, and you're still carrying it
✓ Questions were treated as rebellion, and doubt was treated as a faith problem
✓ You learned to be the good girl — quiet, agreeable, easy to love — and it cost you yourself
✓ Shame, fear, or purity culture still shapes how you see yourself, your body, or your worth
✓ You've left, or you're thinking about leaving, and the grief of that is heavier than anyone expected
✓ You still believe, but church no longer feels safe — and you don't know where that leaves you
If even one of these made your chest tighten, believe it.
That's reason enough to reach out.
What is religious trauma
Naming it is often the first exhale
Religious trauma is what can happen when faith — or the people and systems speaking for it — becomes a source of fear, control, or harm instead of comfort.
Sometimes it's one event. A betrayal. A public shaming. A door closed in your face. More often, it's slower than that: years of messages about your worth, your body, your questions, and your obedience, absorbed so early and so often that they started to sound like your own voice.
It can sound like an inner critic that never rests. It can feel like panic before a holiday with family, grief every Sunday morning, or guilt that shows up even when you haven't done anything wrong.
You don't have to decide whether what happened to you “counts” as trauma. If it's still shaping how you feel about yourself, your relationships, or God, it's worth tending to — whatever we end up calling it.
My approach to church hurt & religious trauma therapy
At your pace, in your words, without an agenda for your faith
Church hurt tangles everything together — what people did, what you were taught about God, and what you started believing about yourself. So we untangle it slowly. I won't defend the church, and I won't push you toward any conclusion about faith. We get honest about what happened and what it cost you, and we build from there. I draw from four approaches and blend them around you, not the other way around.
EMDR
EMDR
Some church moments still land like they're happening now — a song, a phrase, walking into a room that looks like that room. EMDR uses gentle bilateral stimulation, through handheld buzzers, to help your brain reprocess those moments, so they become part of your story instead of something your body keeps reliving.
CBT & ACT
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy helps you catch the beliefs church hurt installed — 'God is disappointed in me,' 'questioning means my faith is weak,' 'a good Christian wouldn't feel this way' — and practice replacing them with what's actually true. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy picks up where that leaves off: instead of wrestling your grief and anger into submission, you learn to make room for them while moving toward the life, and the faith, you actually want.
IFS - Parts Work
Internal Family Systems
Church hurt usually leaves parts of you in conflict — the part that still loves God, the part that's furious, the part that feels guilty about being furious. IFS helps us listen to each part with curiosity instead of shame. Every one of them was trying to protect something that mattered to you.
Mind-body
Mind-body approaches
Church hurt lives in the body too — the Sunday-morning dread, the flinch at a worship song, shoulders bracing through a prayer. So we work there: breath, grounding, and helping your body learn it's not back in that room anymore.
The goal isn't to talk you out of your faith or back into it.
The goal is you, whole and unhurried
Your faith, your terms
This is the part where nobody tells you what to believe
Some of my clients want to rebuild a faith that feels like their own.
Some want help grieving the one they lost.
Some aren't sure there's anything left, and some never want to walk into a church again.
Every one of those is a welcome starting point here.
01 Faith is never required
You don't have to believe anything in particular to do this work, and you never will.
02 Doubt is welcome here
Questions aren't a problem to fix. Often they're where the honest work starts.
03 You decide
If prayer, Scripture, or your faith belongs in the room, we make space for it. If it doesn't, we don't. You're the one who says.
I offer Christian counseling for women who want faith integrated into their therapy — and I sit with just as many women who are untangling themselves from it. Both get the same respect in this room, because both are yours to work out.
What to expect
Three steps, and the first one is just a conversation
01
We start with a conversation
We begin with a free 15-minute consultation — a chance to share what's bringing you in, ask anything, and see whether we're a good fit. No pressure, and no commitment to continue.
02
Tell it at your pace
Sessions are 55 minutes, in person in Burbank or online anywhere in California. You share as much or as little as you're ready for. There's no version of your story that's too messy, too angry, or too uncertain for this room.
03
Do the work, gently
Together we untangle what happened, what it taught you about yourself, and what you want to believe and live by now — using EMDR, IFS, and trauma-informed care, at a pace that never outruns you.
Sessions are 55 minutes · $225 per session · self-pay · In person in Burbank · online across California
People hurt you at church.
That's not the same as God hurting you — and you don't have to pretend it didn't happen to sort that out.
A few questions before we begin
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You're not overreacting. Church hurt and religious trauma run on a spectrum — some experiences were painful moments, others reshaped how you see God, yourself, and every room that looks like that one. Either way, if it's still affecting you, it's worth taking seriously. You don't have to prove it was bad enough first.
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Yes. Needing space from church is not the same as walking away from God. For a lot of women, stepping back is what healing requires for a season. What you do about church later is your decision, in your time — never mine to rush.
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No — healing "does not require leaving your faith". Some women rebuild theirs, some redefine it, some set it down for a while. I'm not here to move you toward or away from faith. I'm here to help you get honest about what happened and what you want now.
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They're not the same thing. Spiritual abuse uses control, fear, shame, or "God said so" to keep you in line — questions get punished, worth gets tied to obedience, and leaving feels dangerous. If that sounds familiar, it's worth calling it what it was. We can sort through it together, at your pace.
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Not here, and not on anyone's timeline. Forgiveness gets used in church hurt to rush people past real pain and protect the ones who caused it. If it becomes part of your healing someday, it will be because you're ready — not because someone needed you quiet.
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Then bring that too — people ask this constantly, usually in a whisper, because it feels like the one feeling a good Christian isn't allowed to have. Here it's allowed. You don't have to clean it up before you say it out loud.
You Don't Have to Do This Alone
Even if you haven't set foot in a church in years.
Even if you're still angry.
Even if the people who hurt you never said sorry.
I'd be honored to walk alongside you as you sort out what happened, what it cost you, and what you want to keep.