Spiritual Abuse Counselling: What Helps and What Doesn’t

Spiritual Abuse Counselling

Spiritual abuse happens when spiritual authority, beliefs, or practices are misused to control, manipulate, or silence people. Because it touches deeply personal areas of life—identity, relationships, values, and faith—the harm often runs deep. Many survivors of spiritual abuse describe carrying wounds that affect not just their emotions, but also their sense of self and belonging.

Counselling can be a safe place to process these experiences, but it’s not automatically safe. The way counselling is done really matters. Done well, it can help you heal. Done poorly, it can accidentally repeat the same harmful patterns you’ve already endured

What Can Help in Counselling

The Importance of Feeling Safe

Feeling safe in therapy is more than just sitting in a calm environment. It’s about knowing you can speak openly without fear of judgment, punishment, or retaliation. Many survivors worry about what might happen if they express doubt, grief, anger, or questions—because in the past, those feelings were often met with shaming, discipline, or exclusion.

At its core, spiritual abuse creates three types of harm:

• Misuse of power — when leaders or authority figures dominate or take advantage of others.

• Psychological harm — when someone’s sense of self is diminished.

• Spiritual harm — when a person who needs care or encouragement is instead mistreated in ways that weaken their faith or spiritual strength.

  
  

Good counselling takes all three of these into account and moves at a pace that feels safe and supportive for you.

Naming and Validating the Harm

One of the most common struggles spiritual abuse survivors talk about is secretly wondering if they experienced abuse. They might find themselves wondering, “Was it really abuse?” or “Maybe it wasn’t that bad.”  Having someone gently name patterns like gaslighting, coercive control, or spiritual abuse can bring clarity. Some people find it empowering to use those words, others prefer different language. What matters most is feeling validated, and that at least one person understands that what you went through was real, harmful, and worthy of care.

For many, finally having their experiences recognised as spiritual abuse is a huge relief. It shifts blame away from them and reduces the shame they’ve carried.

Faith and Belief

After abuse, people respond to spirituality in very different ways. Some want to stay in their faith tradition, some need distance, at least for a time, and many feel caught somewhere in between. There’s no one “right” path. Counselling should give you space to be ambivalent, to question, and to take your time working out what feels authentic for you.

For some, healing might mean reconnecting with faith in new and healthier ways or changing denominations or faith traditions. For others, it may mean stepping away while they try to understand what they have experienced. What matters is that your choices are respected.

How Abuse Shapes Relationships

Spiritual abuse doesn’t just affect how you see yourself—it also impacts how you relate to others. It can leave patterns like people-pleasing, fear of abandonment, difficulty setting boundaries, or always doubting yourself. These are good things to explore in counselling, and a good psychologist or counsellor will understand how to help you explore them in a way that feels safe to you.

The ripple effects of spiritual also often extend to family and community. Leaving a high-control or abusive spiritual environment can mean losing contact with family, friends, or an entire community. This kind of loss can feel disorienting and heartbreaking, leaving survivors to grieve not only the harm, but also the relationships and belonging that once mattered.

A counsellor can help you process this grief, recognise the old patterns that carried forward, and begin building healthier ways of connecting. This might also include working through complicated family ties and helping you determine safe boundaries and gradually supporting you as you seek to create new social networks where safety, respect, and belonging are possible.

Reclaiming Your Voice and Choice

Spiritual abuse can erode your confidence in your own decisions and perceptions. You may find yourself second-guessing everything. Schema Therapy researcher Dr. Offer Maurer talks about the inner gaslighter—an internal voice survivors often carry with them, echoing the messages of the abusive environment. It might sound like:

• “Maybe it really was me that destroyed the church.”

• “Maybe I deserved this because I wasn’t sacrificial or godly enough.”

These thoughts aren’t your authentic voice—they’re the internalised echoes of the abuse. Counselling can help you recognise when the inner gaslighter is speaking, separate it from your true self, and gradually quiet its influence.

Approaches like Schema Therapy and Compassion-Focused Therapy can be particularly helpful here, because they target shame, self-blame, and those harsh internal voices. In therapy, even small decisions—like choosing what you want to talk about—can help you practice reclaiming your voice and rebuilding trust in yourself. Over time, spiritual abuse counselling can support you in building self-compassion and reclaiming your agency.

What Isn’t Helpful in Counselling

Not all approaches to therapy are healing. Some things that often get in the way include:

• Minimising or dismissing: Comments like “every church has problems” or “maybe it was a misunderstanding” repeat the silencing you’ve already endured.

• Pressure to forgive or reconcile: In abusive settings, forgiveness was often used as a weapon, or as a form of coercion to remain silent. There should be no requirement from a therapist to forgive. Healing might mean grieving, feeling anger, and setting boundaries. If forgiveness or reconciliation ever become part of your journey, they should happen at your pace, and on your terms—not as a condition of healing.

• Discouraging accountability or justice: Sometimes survivors want to seek accountability or even restorative justice. It’s important that counselling doesn’t close down those options or pressure you away from them.

• Pathologising your faith choices: Some survivors want to keep parts of their faith, others step away. Neither is wrong. Suggesting you’re “only still religious because you’re traumatised” or “you’ve lost your way because you left” invalidates your experience.

• Over-spiritualising recovery: Prayer, worship, or scripture can be deeply meaningful—but only if you choose them. It’s unhelpful when therapy mirrors the pressure of the abusive environment by suggesting more devotion or submission is the answer.

• Repeating unhealthy power dynamics: Counselling can feel unsafe if it mirrors the hierarchies you’ve already been harmed by. For example, if a counsellor also acts as your pastor, mentor, or mediator with your abuser, boundaries are blurred and you may not feel free to speak openly.

• Overemphasis on “moving on”: Healing takes time. Being told to “just move forward” often feels like the same pressure to stay silent.

• Counsellor over-identification: Some counsellors have their own experiences of faith or trauma. If they share too much or assume your journey will look like theirs, it can shift the focus away from you.

  
  

Moving Forward

Spiritual Abuse Counselling can’t erase the past, but it can help you make sense of it, grieve what was lost, and support you in creating new ways of living that feel safe and authentic. For some, this includes reshaping or redefining faith. For others, it doesn’t. Healing from spiritual abuse often means reclaiming your freedom, rediscovering your voice, and finding relationships built on respect, equality, and care. Therapy can be one of the places where those new possibilities begin to grow.

An Invitation

If you’ve experienced spiritual abuse or are struggling with its impact, you don’t have to carry it alone. Counselling can offer a safe place to process your story, rebuild trust in yourself, and explore what healing might look like for you.

If you feel ready, I invite you to book an appointment and take the next step toward support.

Book A Session Today

Disclaimer: Any stories or examples provided are an example only and do not describe a specific client, person or event. Some of the information we provide on our website may be information related to health and medical issues, but it's not meant to be health and medical "advice". We provide this information for your general use only. While we try to provide accurate information, it may be historical, incomplete information or based on opinions that aren't widely held. Your personal situation has not been considered when providing the information, so any reliance on this information is at your sole risk. We recommend seeking independent professional advice before relying on the information we provide. Find the full terms of service here: Terms of Service | Curated Mind Psych.

References

• Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society, 87(1), 43–52.

• Ellis, A., Creamer, M., & Hodge, A. S. (2022). Religious/spiritual trauma: A systematic review. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 24(2), 191–210.

• Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion focused therapy: Distinctive features. Routledge.

• Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery. Basic Books. (Original work published 1992)

• Johnson, D., & VanVonderen, J. (1991). The subtle power of spiritual abuse. Bethany House.

• Maurer, O., Rafaeli, E., Lazarus, G., & Thoma, N. C. (2016). The self in schema therapy. In The self in understanding and treating psychological disorders (pp. 59–70). Cambridge University Press.

• Pargament, K. I. (2007). Spiritually integrated psychotherapy. Guilford Press.

• Winell, M. (2011). Leaving the fold. Apocryphile Press.