jude hatfield counselling
making meaning + nourishing life
hey, I’m Jude.
welcome.
I’m glad you’re here.
I’m a registered therapist offering support through compassion, presence, & person-centred counselling. I’m a trauma-informed practioner offering support for
spiritual trauma, grief & loss;
faith deconstruction & spiritual displacement;
religious trauma & spiritual abuse.
I support people with a range of issues flowing from adverse spiritual / religious experiences, such as
identity confusion & anxiety
grief & loss
depression & isolation after leaving a faith community
relationship issues
faith deconstruction /existential questioning
loss of meaning
boundary issues
recreating a nourishing life on your own terms
complex trauma
moral injury
shattered core assumptions
grieving God
releasing outgrown beliefs
learning to trust yourself
become a safe place for yourself
If this kind of support sounds like it may be useful for you, or if you’d like to laern more, please reach out. I’d love to connect with you.
Member of Australian Counselling Association (Level 1).
Member of the Religious Trauma and Cults Association (Australia and New Zealand/Aotearoa).
My lived experience of recovery from Religious Trauma and professional knowledge of how to navigate the profound impacts of this kind of harm, combined with more than a decade of professional experience in soulcare, spiritual formation and counselling are what motivates me to do this work.
As an ex-pastor, I understand the religious landscape from within.
As a survivor of religious abuse, I understand how damaging, complex, multi-layered and far-reaching religious harm can be.
As a therapist, I understand the psychological processes beneath this harm, and am committed to doing what I can to help people process and recover from these kind of experiences.
These words from Dr. Hilary McBride, a psychologist, researcher, and author specialising in spiritual trauma and recovery name the displacement, confusion, longing and need for safety that I see in so many survivors. These words are a touchstone for me. They remind me why this work matters, and why I am committed to relieving the distress, trauma and crisis that survivors carry. Often alone.
“Individuals experiencing religious deconstruction may feel spiritually displaced, having left their prior religious home yet not identifying cleanly with the purely secular sphere. Behaving in ways that exhibit a continued search for connection with sources of transcendent meaning and value, yet wary of traditional religious contexts, this population diplays a combination of unmet spiritual needs and psychological distress …The process of leaving religion is not simply a trivial decision but an emotionally turbulent process of ‘deconstructing’ enduring aspects of a previously cherished identity. It is often spurred by trauma, emotional and social disillusionment, and intellectual crisis”.
Not everyone who has experienced spiriutal abuse or religious trauma wants to maintain a connection to their spirituality or beliefs.That’s pretty understandable. But the combination of unmet spiritual needs and high amounts of psychological distress are very common in survivors.
My work exists at this intersection of spirituality and trauma. My purpose as a Religious Trauma therapist is to support my clients to unravel and begin to rebuild a meaningful life after spirituality has become interconnected with harm. I do not impose any agenda on my clients to believe or not believe. I do use my extensive knowledge of christian spiritual formation combined with my therapeutic knowledge and skills to support my clients in working towards their own therapeutic goals, and helping my clients to identify what matters to them and how to move towards living a nourishing, meaningful life.
(In case you’re wondering)
what do I mean by “presence” & “person-centred” counselling:
It’s about creating a therapeutic relationship with you through unconditional valuing and acceptance. You are the authority on your own life, and I am a supportive witness and compassionate presence. Together we will gradually explore what it’s like to be you: what you feel, think, need and desire. At a pace and in a way that’s right for you. And to explore the gap between your feelings, thoughts, needs and how life is for you right now.
There’s no “one-size suits all” in counselling. It’s about growth, and gradully learning to be and become more aligned with your genuine self, then and making choices based on this. It’s about the life-long process of tending to and befriending your own life.
My ethos of care is grounded in:
the restorative presence of nature
the healing medicine of unconditional kindness
the radical compassion of contemplative practices.
You may need different conditions to feel most like yourself. My aim is not to impose anything on you, but to listen with you to what your life / inner self is seeking. I practice from a flexible, inclusive, trauma-informed perspective which respects diversity of belief and the Sacred within all beings.
I honour the Sacred in whatever form They present themselves to us.
LGBTQI+ affirming. All genders are welcome here.