Find Connection, Understanding, and Recovery in Community
Our support groups are for anyone experiencing religious trauma, regardless of their faith background or stage in their healing journey. This includes people navigating the emotional, relational, and identity impacts of leaving or questioning a religion, dealing with spiritual abuse, high-control environments, or faith-based pressure and guilt. The groups are designed to provide a safe, supportive, and understanding space where you can share experiences, feel validated, and connect with others who truly get what it’s like to live through the complex aftermath of religious harm.
Available online for people across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Who Are These Groups For?
Our support groups are for anyone experiencing:
Religious or spiritual trauma
Cults or cultic systems
Coercive control or high-control religious environments
Faith-based pressure, fear, guilt, or shame
Loss of identity, belonging, or community
Deconstruction
Confusion, grief, or internal conflict related to religion
Spiritual abuse, purity culture harm, or indoctrination
You don’t need a specific story or a particular “level” of trauma. If religion shaped you through fear, control, shame, or pressure and you’re wanting a space that sees and affirms that then these groups may be for you.
Group Structure & Practical Details
Duration: 6 weeks
Session Length: 90 minutes (online)
Closed Group Size: 6–8 participants (no new members join after Week 1)
Cost: $50 per week ($100 deposit + $200 due the week before groups begin) Payment plans are available on request
2026 Group Dates:
Round 1: Begins February
Round 2: Begins April
Round 3: Begins July
Meet Your Facilitators
“My groups are for LGBTQIA+ identifying people navigating the often complicated and painful intersections of faith, identity, and community. Many LGBTQIA+ folks experience religious trauma not only through leaving or challenging belief systems, but also through internalised shame, rejection, or pressure to conform to heteronormative and cis-normative expectations. We’ll explore these experiences together, everything from grappling with faith-based messaging around sexuality and gender, to reclaiming a sense of self that may have been suppressed or hidden.”
Sam Sellers
“I’m looking forward to facilitating groups where people can connect and make sense of religious trauma together. We’ll look at the ways we experience harm in faith spaces and the ways we recover. My sessions will include understanding trauma through the lens of the nervous system and, the patterns of protection we lay down to survive. From codependence to shame, anger, spiritual bypassing and learning to feel emotions safely as we rebuild identity; we’ll open this big topic right up. We’ll finish each session with grounding techniques and ways to come back to centre.”
Jane Kennedy
“I facilitate groups for people recovering from cultic and high-control religious environments; spaces where fear, conformity, and obedience often replaced authenticity and self-trust. Many survivors leave carrying confusion, grief, and questions about who they are now and how to feel safe in their own minds and bodies again. In our sessions, we’ll explore the psychological, emotional, and physical impacts of coercive control, indoctrination, and abuse, and how these patterns continue to shape our relationships and sense of self. Each week offers education, reflection, and practices designed to help you understand what happened, reconnect with your inner voice, and begin rebuilding safety, autonomy, and self-compassion. These groups are a place to learn, be heard and believed, and realise that recovery doesn’t have to happen alone.”
Elise Heerde
Group Content
Week 1: Power, Belonging & Control (incl. RT 101)
Week 2: Fear, Obedience & the Loss of Safety (incl. Nervous System 101)
Week 3: Shame, Guilt & the Body
Week 4: Voice, Authenticity & Identity
Week 5: Relationships, Boundaries & Rebuilding Connection
Week 6: Freedom, Joy & Living Beyond Trauma
Each facilitator will explore these themes within their specific lens.
Ready to Join a Group?
If you’d like to register your interest or ask questions about which group is right for you, you can express your interest and join the waitlist below.
You don’t have to navigate this alone. We’re here, and there’s a community waiting to welcome you.
Therapeutic Benefits of a Support Group
Understand What Happened
Make sense of coercive control, indoctrination, purity culture, and fear-based systems through trauma frameworks.
Reduce Shame
Share experiences in a community that reflects compassion instead of judgement.
Rebuild Identity & Belonging
Explore who you are outside religious expectations or control.
Feel Less Alone
Meet others who “get it” without needing long explanations or caveats.
Build Nervous System Awareness
Learn grounding, regulation, and safety-building tools that support recovery.
Create New Patterns of Connection
Practice boundaries, communication, and self-trust in a supportive environment.
Move Toward Life Beyond Trauma
Begin imagining and embodying a future shaped by autonomy not fear.
How We Create Safety in Every Group
Trauma-Informed Foundations
You choose how much or how little you share.
You can take breaks or regulate as needed.
Facilitators help pace conversations to minimise overwhelm.
Confidentiality & Respect
What is shared in the group stays in the group.
No recording or screenshots - ever.
Participants speak from their own experience; no unsolicited advice.
Spiritual Safety
No proselytising, debate, or attempts to correct others’ beliefs.
All experiences (leaving faith, staying, redefining spirituality) are respected.
LGBTQIA+ Affirming & Inclusive
The RTC affirms all identities.
Misgendering or exclusionary comments are not tolerated.
Online Safety
All participants attend from a private space where they feel safe to share.
These guidelines ensure that the group feels predictable, inclusive, grounded, and respectful for all participants.