Why Women Are Choosing Therapy Without Shame - When Church Hasn’t Been Safe

The recent article from The Gospel Coalition framed women’s turn toward therapy as a problem. This is not simply misguided, it is dangerous.

This Isn’t About Theology. It’s About Power, Control, and Harm.

I want to be very clear from the outset. This is not a theological argument. This is not a debate about God, belief, or doctrine.

This is about behaviour and power.

It is about coercive control, shame, submission, and the disproportionate harm these dynamics have caused women in fundamentalist evangelical spaces.

When Women Seek Therapy, It Is Not a Trend. It Is a Signal.

The article frames women choosing therapy instead of church as a cultural drift and a sign that something has gone wrong in how people understand care, identity, or authority. What it fails to consider is the most obvious explanation:

Many women are seeking therapy because church environments have not been safe.

Not emotionally. Not psychologically. Not relationally.

For many women raised in fundamentalist evangelicalism, distress did not emerge outside the church, it emerged inside it. Many women are not going to therapy as a replacement for faith; it is often where women go after they have been silenced, shamed, controlled, and spiritually overridden for years.

The article does not engage with this reality at all. And that omission is telling.

Submission Is Not a Neutral Concept for Survivors

I want to be explicit about something that sits at the centre of my work.

I would never use the word “submission” with someone who has been harmed in these spaces.

For survivors of fundamentalist evangelical environments submission is not a benign spiritual posture. It is often the mechanism of harm. It is the language through which autonomy was stripped, consent was bypassed, and power was normalised.

When people have been harmed under teachings that required them to:

• Submit to authority without recourse

• Defer to male leadership as divinely appointed

• Interpret discomfort as rebellion

• Override internal warning signals

…the concept of submission can feel like being asked - yet again - to hand over control.

In my work, I do not talk about submission.I talk about respect.

Respect preserves agency. Respect allows consent to be withdrawn. Respect welcomes disagreement. Respect does not demand self-erasure to prove maturity or faithfulness.

This distinction matters deeply for women recovering from coercive religious systems.

Fundamentalist Evangelicalism and the Conditioning of Compliance

In many fundamentalist evangelical environments, women are not simply taught beliefs, they are conditioned into compliance.

From a young age, girls are often taught to:

• Monitor their tone, emotions, and bodies

• Prioritise others’ comfort over their own safety, especially men.

• View assertiveness as pride

• Interpret suffering as spiritual refinement

This creates an internalised surveillance system where women learn to police themselves long before any leader has to intervene.

By adulthood, many women no longer need to be told to submit because they have learned to:

• Doubt their instincts

• Silence their anger

• Rationalise harm

• Stay quiet to maintain belonging

This is not spiritual maturity, it is learned self-erasure.

And when women finally step outside these systems and enter therapy, often for anxiety, depression, relational trauma, or burnout, the article frames that choice as a problem rather than a predictable response to prolonged control.

Shame Is the Glue That Holds the System Together

Shame is not an unfortunate side effect of these environments, it is one of the primary enforcement tools.

Women who question, resist, or seek help outside the system or the church are often labelled:

• Too emotional

• Bitter or unforgiving

• Deceived

• Spiritually immature

• Influenced by “the world”

The article subtly reinforces this dynamic by positioning therapy as suspicious - a space that supposedly undermines faith rather than a space where women reclaim voice, agency, and self-trust.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth high-control churches and leaders are afraid of: When women gain language for coercive control, trauma, and power imbalance, they become far harder to manage and control.

That is not accidental.

“We Can’t Care If We Don’t Know”: The Problem With Assuming Access

The article states: “As church leaders, we want to care well for our congregations, but it’s challenging to minister to people when we don’t know their struggles. Why are women increasingly looking outside the church for help?”

On the surface this sounds compassionate. But embedded in this framing is a deeply troubling assumption: that women owe church leaders access to their inner lives in order to be cared for.

They do not.

In trauma-informed practice, disclosure is never assumed. It is earned. It depends on safety, consent, boundaries, and trust. When leaders frame women’s silence as the problem they shift responsibility away from the system and back onto women for not making themselves sufficiently accessible.

That is not care. That is entitlement.

Many women are not withholding their struggles out of confusion or spiritual immaturity. They are withholding them because past disclosure came at a cost - minimisation, spiritual bypassing, loss of credibility, pressure to forgive, or information shared without consent.

When women stop disclosing, that is not resistance. It is data.

The more important question is why the church has not been a safe place for them to bring complexity, pain, or dissent.

“Come to Us Early”: When Care Becomes Containment

The article goes on to say: “We encourage our congregants to come to us early in their emotional and relational struggles so we can minister to them through the Word and prayer. At that time, we assess the need for widening the circle of care, keeping both body and soul in mind. Widening care may involve inviting the person to join a small group, offering financial or physical care, or engaging with ministry partners such as counselors and psychiatrists, those our members are already seeing and those with whom we hope to coordinate care.”

This language may sound collaborative but it reveals a deeply concerning dynamic: the assumption that church leaders should be the primary gatekeepers of care.

“Come to us early” is not neutral. It subtly discourages people, particularly women, from seeking independent support without first passing through the church’s authority structure. Distress is framed as something that should be disclosed inside the system before it is taken anywhere else.

That is not empowerment. That is containment.

The idea that leaders will assess whether care should be widened further erodes agency. The person experiencing distress is not positioned as the expert on their own needs. Authority rests with leaders who decide what kind of help is appropriate and when.

This is how coercive systems operate: Choice is reframed as guidance and oversight is reframed as care.

Even when external professionals are involved, the church remains central by referring to specifically chosen supports (in this case Christian counsellors who only offer “biblical truth”), coordinating, supervising, shaping the narrative. The circle may widen, but control does not loosen, because the leaders also expect to be kept in the loop the whole time. This is highly unethical and deeply controlling.

In trauma-informed practice, widening the circle of care means decentralising authority and returning decision-making to the individual.

For women already conditioned to defer, comply, and distrust their instincts, this model reinforces dependence on external authorities, rather than recovery through building self-trust and agency.

The Erasure of Egregious Harm

What is most concerning about the article is not what it says but what it refuses to name.

There is no meaningful acknowledgment of:

• The widespread abuse of power by pastors and church leaders

• The grooming and exploitation of women under the guise of “spiritual care”

• The silencing of women who disclose harm

• The institutional reflex to protect reputation over people

Instead, the article mentions one line about abuse and then frames the issue as one of worldview correction. This is a classic institutional move: shifting attention away from behaviour and toward fundamentalist beliefs that hold no space for trauma or agency.

Why Framing Therapy as the Problem Is So Harmful

By suggesting that women are choosing therapy because they’ve absorbed the wrong worldview, the article:

• Invalidates women’s lived experiences

• Minimises systemic coercion and abuse

• Protects institutional power

• Reinforces shame toward those who seek safety

This framing doesn’t just misunderstand women, it actively discourages recovery.

Care Without Boundaries Is Not Care

Another dangerous implication of the article is the expectation that churches should meet needs that actually require clear boundaries, accountability, and specialised professional support.

Encouraging women to stay in or return to the very systems that harmed them, without naming power imbalances, safeguards, or limits, is not pastoral care. It is retraumatisation.

This is not about demonising pastors, churches, or Christianity. It is about recognising patterns:

• Authority without accountability creates vulnerability

• Spiritual authority combined with emotional authority increases risk

• Care that discourages outside support entrenches dependency

In fundamentalist environments, women are often discouraged from seeking external help precisely because independence threatens control.

Pastors are not trained counsellors, mental health practitioners, social workers, or psychologists. When they step into roles they are not qualified for, especially with people who are already vulnerable, this is not care - it is a misuse of power. Cloaking that overreach in spiritual language about being “the hands and feet of Jesus” does not make it ethical; it makes it harder to challenge. Good intentions do not negate the harm caused when professional boundaries are ignored.

There are pastors and church leaders who hold professional mental health qualifications, and those leaders should understand this distinction better than anyone. They know that counselling members of their own congregation would be a serious ethical violation due to power imbalance, lack of neutrality, and the impossibility of informed consent. The absence of these safeguards is precisely why clear boundaries matter - not to undermine care, but to protect those who are most at risk.

The Question We Should Be Asking

The question is not: Why are women going to therapy instead of church?

The real question is: Why are so many women leaving faith spaces needing professional support to recover their autonomy, boundaries, and sense of self?

Until fundamentalist evangelical institutions are willing to confront power, control, and harm, rather than deflecting into doctrine or cultural critique, articles like this will continue to retraumatise the very people they claim to care about.

Women are not choosing therapy because they are confused, they are choosing it because it offers what many faith spaces still refuse to provide: respect, consent, accountability, and agency.

And that should tell us everything.

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Elise Heerde is a qualified trauma-informed counsellor and coach who helps people heal from religious trauma and high-control systems. With lived experience, professional training, and a passion for creating safe, judgment-free spaces with a splash of sarcasm. Elise blends authenticity and hope in all she offers. Co-founder of The Religious Trauma Collective (Australia/New Zealand). Author of Holy Hell: Saved So Hard I Needed Therapy https://www.eliseheerde.com/