Counseling For Religious Trauma, Purity Culture, Spiritual Abuse, & Faith Deconstruction
Religious Trauma Therapy in Tacoma, Washington
The Church Used to Be Your Foundation
You grew up believing.
You grew up believing. Maybe faith was the center of your family; maybe it was just the background of everything: Sunday services, youth group, the assumptions everyone around you in Tacoma shared. You built your life on it.
But then something cracked.
Maybe it was slow: years of watching the gap between what your church preached and how they actually treated people. Maybe it was sudden: a betrayal, an abuse cover-up, a political stance that showed you exactly where their priorities were.
Now you're standing in the rubble of something you thought would last forever, trying to figure out who you are without it.
But when you search for help in Tacoma, most of what comes up is Christian counseling or faith-based therapy, therapists whose framework assumes you want to reconnect with God. If you're here, you’re probably looking for something different.
You need a therapist who understands what happened to you: that you were taught your worth depended on your obedience, that doubt was dangerous, that your body and desires couldn't be trusted, and that leaving meant losing your entire community, your identity, and in some cases your family. That does real damage, and healing from it requires someone who recognizes it as damage, not as a crisis of faith.
Religious Trauma Goes Deeper Than What You Believe
Research shows that 27-37% of people who leave high-control religions experience symptoms that mirror PTSD. The combination of authoritarian control, fear-based theology, and identity enmeshment creates real, physiological trauma.
You can't think your way out of it. You can't pray your way out of it. And you can't just "move on" because the trauma isn't stored in your opinions about church. It's stored in your body.
Religious trauma often shows up as:
Anger you can't shake. You're not sad about leaving - you're furious. Furious at the years you lost, the lies you believed, the way your church protected abusers and shamed victims. The anger makes sense, but it's eating you alive. You snap at your kids. You can't let it go.
Shame that hits your body before your brain. You don't believe anymore. But every time you skip church, every time you make a choice your parents would disapprove of, the guilt floods in. It's not a thought; it's a physical sensation (your chest tightens or your stomach drops).
Trouble in your marriage. Maybe your spouse is still a believer and doesn't understand why you've changed. Maybe you've both left but the damage is showing up between you - in how you fight, how you parent, how you can't seem to connect anymore.
Nightmares or intrusive thoughts about hell. You don't believe in it. You still wake up at 3am in a cold sweat. The fear was programmed into your nervous system before you could think critically about it, and thinking your way out hasn't made it stop.
Distrust of your own body. Especially if you grew up in purity culture. You learned that your body was dangerous, your desires were sinful, your sexuality was something to control and suppress. Now you don't know how to feel at home in your own skin.
Isolation in plain sight. Tacoma isn't as secular as Seattle. Church is still a normal part of life here. Your coworkers talk about their small groups and your neighbors go to Sunday service. When you stop believing, you become an outsider in your own community.
If you grew up in purity culture, the impact runs deep.
Research on 20,000 women from evangelical backgrounds found that 22.6% experience vaginismus or sexual dysfunction, which is a direct result of teachings that framed the body as shameful. You might have pain during sex, shame that kills intimacy, or total disconnection from what you actually want.
This is what happens when harmful beliefs get wired into your nervous system during childhood. And it doesn't heal just because you've intellectually rejected the theology.
You can read more about how I approach religious trauma and faith deconstruction work, including what to expect in sessions and who this work is for, on my religious trauma therapy page.
Religious Trauma Therapy in Tacoma That Goes Beyond Intellectual Processing
I know the world you came from because I came from it, too.
I grew up immersed in the traditional Christian faith. I understand what it means to have your entire social life, sense of purpose, and morality wrapped up in one belief system. And I know what it feels like when that foundation cracks.
You won’t need to explain what youth group is, why purity culture still affects you, or what it means to lose your eternal family.
My role as your therapist is not to tell you what to believe or not believe. Some clients come to me knowing exactly where they stand. Others are still figuring it out and that process feels disorienting and lonely. Either way, we work with what is happening in your body: the guilt, the hypervigilance, the shame, the grief, so that it stops running the show when you’re trying to make a decision, have a conversation, or just get through a holiday dinner.
We work with your body, not just your thoughts
I use a combination of EMDR, somatic therapy, and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT).
In plain terms, EMDR helps your brain reprocess memories and experiences that are still triggering strong reactions even though they happened years ago. Somatic therapy works with what's happening in your body, because a lot of what you're carrying from religion doesn't live in your thoughts, it lives in your tight shoulders, your shallow breathing, your stomach dropping when you get a text from your parents. And EFT helps you understand and change the emotional responses that show up in your closest relationships, the ones that religious upbringing tends to wire in deep.
This means we'll work with the tightness in your jaw and shoulders you've stopped noticing, the way you brace every time you say something that would’ve gotten you in trouble before, the fatigue underneath all the productivity, and the feelings you've been pushing down since you were a kid.
Specialized Support for Tacoma Clients
Purity Culture & Sexual Disconnection
Many clients come to me because their marriage is struggling and they can't figure out why. They've achieved everything else; why can't they connect with their partner?
Often, purity culture is underneath it: the shame, the disconnection from your body, and the messages that desire is dangerous and sex is dirty (until suddenly it's supposed to be sacred).
I have extensive training in somatic therapy for sexual trauma, including certifications in body-based approaches to healing shame and rebuilding trust in physical experience. This work helps you reconnect with your body, release the purity culture programming, and build genuine intimacy.
Your Marriage Is Struggling Because of Your Faith Shift
When one partner deconstructs it can feel like you’re living with a stranger.
I'm trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples. I can help you navigate the grief of losing shared beliefs, communicate across the divide without constant conflict, rebuild emotional and physical intimacy, and decide together what your relationship looks like going forward.
Learn more about EFT couples therapy for mixed-faith marriages here.
High-Functioning Anxiety & Earning Approval
In most religious environments, love and belonging were conditional. You earned them through obedience, service, and moral performance. Rest meant you were lazy and doubt meant you were failing. The standard was perfection, and the consequence for falling short was losing your community, your identity, or your eternal soul.
That same wiring doesn’t shut off when you leave the church. It just finds a new context. The boss replaces the pastor, the performance review replaces the spiritual evaluation, and the relentless drive to prove yourself keeps running because your nervous system still believes that stopping means losing.
So you overwork, overfunction, say yes to things you don't want to do, and collapse on weekends, but can't actually rest because rest still feels like you “should” be doing more. You've built an impressive life on the outside, and on the inside you're running on the same fear that kept you in line as a kid.
In Religious Trauma Therapy, I’ll Help You:
We'll work with the anger so it stops bleeding into your marriage, your parenting, and your ability to get through a normal day. You can be angry about the purity teachings that damaged your sexuality, the leaders who were protected while victims were silenced, and the guilt you carried for simply asking questions, and still be present with the people you love.
We'll address the shame that floods your body every time you make a choice your parents wouldn't approve of, so you can actually live by your own values without your nervous system punishing you for it.
We'll work with the fear that still wakes you up at 3am, so you can sleep through the night instead of lying there wondering if you're making an eternal mistake.
If your faith shift is affecting your marriage, we'll work on that together, whether you and your spouse are on different pages or you've both left and the damage is showing up in how you fight, how you parent, or how you can't seem to connect anymore.
If purity culture left you disconnected from your body, we'll work on reconnecting, so that sex can feel safe, pleasure doesn't come with guilt, and your body starts to feel like yours again.
We'll figure out how to handle religious family, so that holidays and family gatherings don't wreck you for a week and you can respond to proselytizing without shutting down or saying something you regret.
And we'll work on finding your footing, so you know who you are when you're not performing for a church, a family, or a God you're not sure you believe in anymore.
Telehealth Religious Trauma & Faith Deconstruction Therapy for Tacoma Residents
I provide telehealth religious trauma therapy to clients throughout Tacoma and Pierce County. Whether you're near downtown, in University Place, Lakewood, Puyallup, or anywhere else in the area, you can work with me from home.
Telehealth means you don't have to explain to anyone where you're going. You don't have to worry about running into someone from your former church in a waiting room. You can do this work privately, on your schedule.
Serving Tacoma and Pierce County
Including University Place, Lakewood, Puyallup, Federal Way, Auburn, Spanaway, Parkland, Bonney Lake, Gig Harbor, Fife, Sumner, Graham, Steilacoom, JBLM, Olympia, Lacey, and surrounding areas.
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About Ingrid Johnston, LMFT, MDFT
Tacoma religious trauma therapist
I’ve been working with individuals and couples since 2014, with specialized training in trauma, somatic therapy, and faith transitions. I hold a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and advanced certification in Medical Family Therapy and Collaborative Medicine from Seattle Pacific University.
My approach integrates EMDR, somatic therapy, and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), evidence-based modalities specifically effective for religious trauma and complex PTSD. I’ve completed over 100 hours of specialized training in trauma treatment and body-based healing.
Beyond my clinical training, my work is informed by my own lived experience. I grew up immersed in traditional Christian faith. I’ve navigated my own path through chronic pain, somatic healing, and decades of mindfulness and meditation practices. I understand what it's like to rebuild trust in your body and intuition after being taught they couldn’t be trusted.
I’m a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (WAMFT).
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist: Washington State License #LF61033631
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Contact Ingrid
Please complete the form, and I will be in touch within 48 business hours.
Office and mailing address:
19803 North Creek Parkway, Suite 205
Bothell, WA 98011
In-person in Bothell & online across Washington