Do I need counselling for faith deconstruction, religious trauma or leaving church?

Wherever you are on the spectrum of faith and whatever stage of the journey you are on, so many walk it alone.

Unless you have grown up in a progressive or open-minded setting (at home or in your religious community), you are unlikely to have a social group or support that can sit with and hold all your doubts, fears, questions and developing feelings and changes.

So many of us travel the journey of faith deconstruction and leaving religion with such a great sense of loneliness. Our journey most likely at best involves dealing with our own sense of guilt or shame (unconsciously or consciously) and at worse having experienced religious trauma or spiritual trauma from some level of abuse and coercion – either at a personal or institutional level.

The majority of clients I have worked with have faced their journey in isolation out of fear of rejection, abandonment or punishment; some even remain within the religious environment despite their inner-world being completely reshaped.

It's incredible what the mind and body can withstand to ensure we remain in relationships, don’t let anyone down and ultimately, feel a sense of connection and security.

I would argue that a number faith communities – in my experience churches – can be a great social aspect of our lived experience and in some part, good for our mental wellbeing. Many people have life long relationships or marriages that stem their places of worship. Research has taken place in the UK to ascertain if remaining in religious environments, despite beliefs changing, is healthy – and many professionals would argue that it is not.

As someone who has been on the inside of churches, working on their staff team and having made great friends from within the church – I totally understand the urge to stay and live with it… but at what cost, in the long run will this have on our internal world and sense of self?

Therapy should not be about advising, recommending or pressuring you to leave your social circles, relationships, marriages or your religious community. Just because your beliefs have changed, and this is impacting your relationships, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a way of working with these challenges. If abuse and trauma are at the heart of your experience, I believe you hold the key to your healing – and this is at the centre of my counselling philosophy – that you know your world best of all.

Only you know what is best for you – even if you haven’t worked it all out yet.

There is so much space in counselling to explore all that you’ve gone through, it really is down to you to begin the process, and go at the speed you’d like to go at. Whether you are finding family dynamics challenging, theological teaching, scared to lose your friendships or partner, we can work through these areas together at a pace that allows for deep processing, careful consideration and life-changing reflection.

As with other areas of the therapeutic process, I work with what is happening in the here and now, past experiences and relationship and the early foundations of your life. What was life like growing up for you? I strongly believe that so much of our behaviour and relational patterns stem from early childhood – especially because of memories that we can not easily recall.

For many of us, we can grow up in a loving home and still have so many questions and curiosities about why things are the way they are – this is a common experience, but there is usually more to it than meets the eye. Part of exploring our faith deconstruction and decision to leave religion, is talking about our general life experiences – what led us on the journey, what led us to this point?

Painting a colourful background to what is happening in the here and now brings into focus past experiences that both negatively and positevely impact you today.

Where do we begin in counselling?

Of course, it can take some time to feel safe in the therapy journey to do this deeper work – there is absolutely no pressure to start in the deep end. You may wish to begin with where you are right now and what is impacting you so immediately.

Exploring what brings you to therapy happens in our first conversation and this can be anything big or small, urgent or relaxed. Everything is permissible.

Is this for me?

I guess there are a few responses to this!

You won’t know until you try? The idea of an introductory session (with me, this is a free 20 minute video call) gives you an sense of what it’s like to talk with me and I can give you some more information on how I can best support you.

How long does therapy take?

There are two forms of therapy: short-term and long-term.

Short term work is usually up to 12 sessions and focuses on a specific issue. I rarely work with short-term clients in this area (as alluded to in this article) because of how deep and wide the impact of spirituality is on our lives. However, if you have one particular issue to focus on, we can set out a short-term plan to work together on this.

Long-term therapy is anything over 12-20 weeks and doesn’t have a set time-frame which means we do regular informal reviews and can go at your pace.

Can you fix my situation?

This isn’t a silly question, even if it comes across as one. We all want to find healing and for our lives to be better – it’s only natural (especially in such a world filled with instant-gratification and transaction) that if you pay for a service, you might expect that I should be able to fix your issues.

The only thing is, that unfortunately no one can fix your issues – except you.

No one can bring about change in your world besides you. My role as your counsellor is to guide and facilitate this change – to help you see parts of yourself that you don’t realise exist. To help bring what is unknown (your unconscious world) into consciousness and to help you discover your true authentic self.

Get in touch today