Religious Trauma Therapy
in Nashville

Therapist Christina Lafferty-Neal
Nashville + Online Across Tennessee

I’m a queer woman who grew up as a pastor’s kid in the South.

I know firsthand how complicated faith, family, and identity can become when the same systems that shaped you also caused harm.

Religious Trauma is Trauma

Faith can be meaningful and life-giving, but it can also leave lasting wounds. For many people, the same beliefs or communities that once offered belonging can become a source of alienation, shame, or loss.

Clients come to me when they’re experiencing:

Constant anxiety or shame
Family conflict, especially around holidays
Political or identity tension
Shame affecting relationships
Feeling lost outside of old beliefs
Trouble trusting their own instincts and goodness
Needing support in coming out or living authentically

This isn’t just “doubt” or “guilt.” It’s trauma. And healing is possible.

Meet with Me

WONDERING IF I CAN HELP?

How Religious Trauma Therapy With Me Works

I use evidence-based and somatic approaches to help you untangle the messages that shaped you, learn to trust yourself again, and build relationships that feel safe and true.

WE’LL PULL FROM:

Learn to notice how shame and anxiety live in your body— and how to create grounding and safety within yourself.
We’ll process painful memories, spiritual harm, and old belief systems so they lose their grip on your present life.
Care for the parts of you that still feel tied to fear, shame, or duty— and reconnect with your core self, the part of you that’s always been steady, good, and whole.
Religious trauma often involves loss — of community, belonging, or faith that once felt like home. Together, we’ll honor that grief and make space for what’s next.

LET'S TALK

After Therapy, Life Feels Different

Clients often describe changes like:

Trusting their own intuition more
Feeling grounded in a sense of worth and inherent goodness
Building healthier, safer relationships
Creating an evolved faith life (or none at all) that feels true to them
Living a life that feels authentically theirs

Healing doesn’t mean forgetting where you came from. It means moving forward with freedom, self-trust, and ease in your body.

LET'S TALK

Hey, I’m Christina.

People often come to me when they’re carrying the weight of religious trauma — the anxiety, the shame, the struggle to stay connected to family while staying true to themselves. I work with adults who want to heal from the messages that shaped them, learn to trust their own instincts, and feel grounded in who they are outside of old beliefs.
Therapy with me is gentle, deep, and nervous-system informed. We’ll move at your pace, never rushing what needs time. Clients often tell me they feel truly seen and supported in our work together— that the shifts they experience are both emotional and embodied.
I believe therapy should help you do more than recover from the past. It should help you live with more self-trust, freedom, and authenticity in the present.
Before private practice, I spent over a decade working with people navigating trauma in complex and high-pressure environments. That time taught me how to meet people in their hardest moments with steadiness, care, and deep respect for what it takes to heal.

MORE ABOUT ME

GETTING STARTED WITH