Why a Religious Trauma Therapist Won’t Tell You What to Do (And Why That’s Actually the Point)
A common frustration I hear from religious trauma survivors in therapy sounds like this:
“I don’t know what to do. I just want someone to tell me what to do.”
When that doesn’t happen — and when your therapist keeps gently turning the question back to you — it can feel irritating, confusing, or even invalidating. Especially if you were raised in a high-control religious environment, the absence of clear direction often triggers anxiety rather than curiosity or wonder.
If this has been your experience, you’re in the right place here 👍
I want to be clear that if you are experiencing the above, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. If we zoom out a little bit, we know that your nervous system was trained to outsource decision making to authority—to God, leaders, or religious systems—in order to stay safe and connected in your faith community. Without an external authority figure telling you what to do or how you should live, it can feel…scary. Destabilizing. Like you are in a free fall.
(If this is your first time stopping by…Hi! I’m Christine, a religious trauma therapist in San Diego, CA. I grew up in conservative evangelicalism, was deeply committed to my faith, became a therapist, realized I was queer, left high-control religion for a bajillion reasons, and deconstructed. These days I am in private practice helping other people recover from religious trauma and spiritual abuse.)
Why Religious Trauma Therapy Feels So Uncomfortable at First
High-control religion trains people to live with an external locus of control. In these systems, wisdom, safety, and “right answers” are believed to exist outside the self (i.e. - you are not going to find any of that within).
Decisions are meant to be filtered through:
Scripture
Pastors or spiritual leaders
Mentors or accountability structures
Spiritual “conviction”
Trusting yourself isn’t framed as discernment. It’s framed as danger, pride, rebellion, or foolishness.
Over time, this creates a deep internal belief that you are not a reliable source of guidance. Your desires are suspect. Your instincts are questionable. Your needs are sinful. Your wants are “of the flesh.”
So when therapy doesn’t immediately offer answers and quell the need for someone outside of yourself telling you what to do, it can feel frustrating rather than supportive.
Therapy Isn’t About Replacing One Authority With Another
The goal of religious trauma therapy is not to swap one system of control for a softer version of the same thing. Instead, it focuses on helping you develop an internal locus of control—the ability to notice and trust your own thoughts, feelings, values, and limits.
This includes learning how to:
Notice your body’s signals instead of overriding them
Let your preferences exist without moral judgment
Identify what you want without immediate guilt
Make decisions without spiraling into thoughts of “is this the ‘right’ choice?”
For survivors of spiritual abuse or high-control religion, this shift can feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and at times, just plain frightening.
Why the Question “What Do You Want?” Can Feel So Threatening
Questions like…
“What do you want in this situation?”
“What feels right to you?”
“What would you choose if guilt wasn’t involved?”
…can trigger anxiety, shutdown, paralysis, or blankness.
This isn’t resistance or avoidance. It’s a trauma response.
Many religious trauma survivors learned that wanting the “wrong” thing could cost them belonging, approval, connection, or safety in their faith community. Their nervous systems adapted by scanning for external permission before making choices.
From that lens, being asked to decide for yourself can feel unsafe—even if you consciously believe you’re allowed to choose.
Why Religious Trauma Therapists Don’t Tell You What to Do
Therapists don’t avoid giving advice because they lack insight or care. They avoid it because telling you what to do would reinforce the very dynamic that caused harm.
If therapy becomes another place where you defer to authority, it may provide short-term relief—but long-term healing stalls. Old patterns get reenacted and further entrenched. The goal of religious trauma therapy is not compliance or certainty. It’s self-trust. It’s curiosity. It’s empathy and love toward self. It’s integration of the parts of you that you’ve had to shove down or ignore in order to survive.
That means helping you practice:
Tolerating uncertainty
Sitting with discomfort instead of bypassing it
Making choices without guaranteed approval (or guaranteed success)
Surviving the fear of being “wrong”
This work is slow by design. And it often feels harder before it feels easier.
Why Discomfort Often Means Therapy Is Working
For many religious trauma survivors, trusting themselves can feel uncomfortable because it was literally the opposite of what they were taught.
High-control religion often prioritized:
God’s desires
Other people’s needs
Your instincts and preferences were often dismissed, questioned, or labeled as “depraved.”
So when a therapist encourages you to notice what you actually need or want, feelings like guilt, shame, fear, or self-doubt often rush in. They can trigger thoughts like:
“I’m being self-centered.”
“I shouldn’t care about myself.”
“Other people’s needs are more important.”
These reactions aren’t signs that you are broken. It’s a sign that your nervous system is getting activated by old messaging. The discomfort is part of relearning self-trust, one choice, one moment, one decision at a time.
Self-Trust After Religious Trauma Is a Skill
Many survivors worry that trusting themselves will make them reckless, selfish, or morally lost. But self-trust is not impulsivity or foolishness. It’s attunement.
It’s the ability to:
Notice when something feels off
Recognize guilt or shame as conditioning rather than conscience
Pause and check-in with yourself instead of automatically deferring
Choose based on what you actually want and not what other people want
These are skills that develop gradually—often within a therapeutic relationship that emphasizes safety, not control.
Therapy as Reorientation, Not Instruction
Rather than offering answers, religious trauma therapy helps you learn how to ask yourself different questions.
You might hear a therapist say:
“Let’s slow this down.”
“What are you noticing in your body?”
“What part of you feels responsible here?”
What do YOU want in this situation?
“What happens if you don’t override that discomfort?”
These are invitations—to reconnect with yourself after years of disconnection.
Learning to trust yourself after religious trauma is also not quick or linear. It happens through repetition, reflection, and small moments of choosing yourself—even when guilt or fear is loud.
A Final Reminder for Religious Trauma Survivors
If you saw yourself in any of the above, you’re not alone. Outsourcing decision-making to authority is an incredibly common survival strategy for survivors of high-control religion and spiritual abuse.
Healing begins when we start attuning to our own inner wisdom about what we want, what our limits are, and what we need to feel safe.
I specialize in working with survivors of religious trauma, purity culture, and high-control religious environments, and I am currently accepting new therapy clients in California, Florida, and Missouri.
If you’re curious about what healing could look like for you, I invite you to request a free consultation below to learn more about working together.
You deserve support that helps you learn to trust yourself.