Deconstruct
your inner
critic
Affirming therapy in Tennessee
for anxious adults
who want to liberate their relationships and career
from their religious childhoods
You’ve been “fine” for a while now.
You’ve put some safe distance between yourself and the conservative religious environment you grew up in.
But the anxiety in the back of your mind persists, telling you you’re not good enough, that you’ll never be good enough.
Your relationships feel tense and confusing, and your life feels … stuck.
Maybe the tension with conservative family members has gotten more unmanageable.
Maybe you’re starting to figure out that your sexuality or gender is more expansive than what would have been safe for younger you.
It’s hard to make decisions, let alone progress in your career,
because you’re not really sure what you want or if you’re allowed to want it.
You’ve been to therapy before, or at least read some self-help books,
but no one’s ever really named the impact of your religious childhood on your adult life.
You thought leaving that church would be enough.
But between family members who didn’t leave,
the shaming voice in the back of your mind,
and the state of the world,
you’re starting to feel haunted by your past religious experiences.
And it’s hard to explain to others.
You may love being an overachieving problem-solver, but your mental health isn’t a problem you have to solve on your own.
Hi there. I’m Karen Chambless (she/her), a licensed mental health therapist practicing in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Growing up in a religious environment impacts you for the rest of your life, whether in positive or negative ways. For most of us raised in the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s, there was at least some harm mixed in with the good.
I can offer you true empathy as a person who has lived experience with disentangling from the psychological, emotional, social, relational, and financial impact of control-based religion.
I speak the language of Christianity including the evangelical and fundamentalist “dialects,” I’ve wrestled with embracing my identity that doesn’t look anything who my parents raised me to be, and I’ve shouted into the void until some answers came back.
We’ll grieve and rage together, we’ll laugh together, we’ll cry together. We’ll find the pieces of yourself that survived the repression and denial and gaslighting and abandonment and punishment. We’ll reclaim some form of spirituality, if you want.
No bullshit. No platitudes. No forced forgiveness. No shaming. Just someone who can really see you and hear you and help you untangle the knots in your nervous system that you didn't ask to be put there.
I promise that you and I are smarter and stronger together than any pastor, parent, or deity of your childhood.