Counseling for Religious Trauma, Purity Culture, and Eating Disorder Recovery
Reclaim Your Body AND Autonomy
When high-control religious environments weaponize guilt, shame, and fear, the path back to yourself can feel overwhelming. You deserve a compassionate space to deconstruct and reconstruct your worldview, heal your relationship with food and body, and (re)discover your true self.
The Connection Between Purity Culture and Disordered Eating
Purity Culture and high-control religious environments do not just shape your beliefs—they deeply impact the way in which you experience being a body. The same mechanisms used to enforce spiritual obedience often lay the groundwork for body dissatisfaction, chronic shame, and disordered eating. In fact, Purity Culture’s teachings have been connected to:
1. Sexual Dysfunction
Growing up with teachings that framed sexuality as dangerous, sinful, or something you had to police can condition your nervous system to view intimacy as a physical threat. Many women who absorbed these messages struggle with low libido, performance anxiety, difficulty achieving orgasm, or physical pain like vaginismus. This is not a personal failure and your body is not broken. This is a physiological protection mechanism built through years of shame, silence, and forced obligation. Through trauma-informed counseling, you can reclaim your bodily autonomy, reduce pain and anxiety, and increase pleasure.
2. Bodily Shame
Purity Culture taught young women that their bodies were dangerous "stumbling blocks" responsible for men's thoughts and actions. In addition, objectifying analogies comparing women to "licked lollipops" or "petal-less flowers" instilled a deep fear that falling short of impossible purity standards makes a person fundamentally defective or dirty. As a result, Purity Culture may have left you carrying a heavy, silent weight of shame about your body. Therapy offers a supportive, non-judgmental space to deconstruct these harmful belief systems, untangle your self-worth from modesty rules, and cultivate deep self-compassion.
3. (Dis)embodiment
When a someone teaches you that your body is inherently untrustworthy or unsafe, your mind may cope by disconnecting from your body. As a result, many women learn to experience themselves from the neck up, constantly monitoring how their body appears to others rather than feeling what is happening on the inside. Over time, this state of disembodiment can decrease interoception—making it hard to recognize hunger cues, emotional states, and/or physical boundaries. Body-centered counseling gently guides you back into your body, helping you rebuild internal safety and trust your body's signals once again.
4. Disordered Eating
Disordered eating behaviors are never just about food. Disordered eating often functions as a survival tool to numb overwhelming emotional pain, manage trauma, and regain control. Within Purity Culture, thinness and extreme self-denial are frequently equated with moral discipline and spiritual purity. Restricting, bingeing, purging, or obsessing over food rules can become ways to numb chronic shame, perform perfectionism, or shrink your body to escape unwanted sexual attention. Counseling can help you to heal the underlying trauma, process deep emotional wounds, and make peace with food and your body.
WHAT IS RELIGIOUS TRAUMA?
Spiritual or religious trauma occurs when a religious institution or belief system damages your sense of safety, self-worth, agency, and bodily autonomy. Healing requires unlearning the shame that was never even yours to carry.
Symptoms of religious trauma:
Guilt and Shame: Experiencing intense self-hatred and beliefs that you are inherently "bad," dirty, or broken.
Perfectionism: Striving for an impossible moral standard because your self-worth is entirely tied to obedience.
Black-and-White Thinking: Viewing the world, people, and choices in rigid, absolute terms of good versus evil.
Difficulty Making Decisions: Struggling with autonomy because your spiritual leaders make every decision.
Hypervigilance: Living in a constant state of “fight or flight”, often triggered by fears of divine punishment.
Loss of Community and Isolation: Feeling profoundly lonely, alienated, or disoriented after stepping away.
Boundary Struggles: Experiencing intense anxiety or panic when trying to set personal boundaries.
Sexual Dysfunction: Harboring deep anxiety, confusion, or shame regarding the body and sexuality.
Co-occurring Disorders: Developing symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression, OCD, or disordered eating.
Somatic Complaints: Chronic fatigue, sleep disturbances, nightmares, or physical tension.
Is Religious Trauma Affecting You?
Leaving or questioning a high-control faith tradition is rarely just a change in your belief system. It is a profound disruption to your identity, social network, and worldview. Thus, it is normal if this process feels incredibly painful and/or disorientating.
Do any of the statements below sound like you?
I feel intense guilt or anxiety when I don't follow strict rules.
I struggle to trust my own decisions, feelings, or hunger signals without looking for external approval.
I feel deep shame about my body size, shape, or sexual identity.
I view eating "bad" foods or breaking my diet as a personal or moral failure.
I experience panic and intrusive thoughts regarding sin, perfection, or punishment.
I feel lonely, isolated, or lost as I deconstruct my childhood faith or community.
If you said “yes” to any of the statements above, then you are not alone. These experiences are a normal response to high-control environments. However, just because you were raised in shame does not mean that you need to stay there. Healing is possible and you do not have to navigate the process alone.
An emotions-focused, Body-centered Therapeutic approach
At Annie Beth Company, the therapeutic relationship is seen as safe container where you are free to explore your questions and beliefs without the pressure of “getting it right”. Whether you are actively deconstructing, rebuilding a healthy relationship with faith on your own terms, or identifying as agnostic or atheist, your autonomy is essential. Together, we will help you:
1. Reclaim Bodily Autonomy
We will work to undo the belief system that taught you to distrust your body. Through an intuitive eating, Health at Every Size ® (HAES), and somatic approach, we will help you to reconnect to your body’s communication signals and increase your sense of body trust and safety.
2. Detach Food and Morality
We will deconstruct rigid, "black-and-white" thinking patterns about food and bodies, reduce your feelings of guilt and shame, and help you to honor and respect your body without turning to diets and weight loss programs that simply do not work. We will help you to make peace with food.
3. Support your Deconstruction
We will hold space for the grief, anger, and confusion that comes with leaving a high-control religious belief system. We will help you to untangle what was helpful and what was harmful. Using a trauma-informed approach, we will help you to rediscover your core values and beliefs.
4. Heal Underlying Wounds
Using emotionally-focused and somatic interventions, we will work to access, process, and transform the emotional and traumatic experiences that are contributing to your symptoms. We will help you improve your relationships with food, body, self, and others.
Hi, I’m Annie Calhoun Randall!
I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor Associate, Professional Counselor Associate, and Certified Nutrition Therapy Practitioner. I help teens (13+) and adults with eating disorders build healthier relationships with food, movement, and their bodies. Using an emotions-focused and body-centered approach, I can help you process spiritual trauma, decrease body shame and sexual shame, improve your body image, heal from your eating disorder, and rebuild an authentic life grounded in self-trust and self-compassion.
To learn more about my approach, please visit my ABOUT ME page.
Start Your Journey TODAY
SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULT
Schedule a 15-minute phone consultation. During this call, we will briefly discuss your challenges, needs, and goals. We will determine if we are a good fit to work together, and I will answer any questions you might have. If it is a “yeah, let’s go!”, then I will send you the intake forms and provide you with access to my secure client portal.
COMPLETE AN INTAKE ASSESSMENT
Once all paperwork is completed, we will meet for an intake assessment. During this 80 to 90-minute appointment, we will review my policies and procedures, the limits of confidentiality, and your intake paperwork. We will also further discuss your symptoms and personal history, identify your treatment goals, and address your questions.
BEGIN YOUR THERAPY SESSIONS
After the initial assessment is completed, we may then begin treatment. A standard therapy session lasts 50- to 60-minutes. Clients generally commit to a weekly or bi-weekly standing session time (i.e., “Wednesdays at 3:00 pm”). If you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, please notify me 24-hours in advance to avoid late cancellation fees.
You Belong to Yourself
Are you ready to heal your relationship with food, your body, and yourself? Annie Calhoun Randall offers therapy services for residents in Oregon and Washington, with in-person sessions in Portland, OR.
Have questions? Visit our FAQ Page for more information.