Anne Tillery

For a period of my life I was part of a high-control Western psychological community that had the dynamics of a cult. It taught me from the inside how coercive influence works, the idealizing of an authority figure, suffering recast as a spiritual or psychological lesson, a growing dependence on the group, and the slow loss of the ability to tell my own experience apart from what I’d been told it meant.

It also taught me that cultic power isn’t limited to religion. It can form around a spiritual teacher, a psychological theory, a therapeutic community, a charismatic clinician or a self-development movement, anywhere authority stops being open to question and people are encouraged to distrust their own perceptions. So I take particular care with people coming out of places where spiritual or psychological language was used to override their boundaries, or to turn their distress into a personal failing.

I won’t steer you toward or away from any belief. Whether you’ve left your tradition, are still part of it, or aren’t sure yet, the work is about being able to recognize and trust your own experience again, not about trading one authority for another, and that includes me.

I work with individuals and couples on religious trauma and spiritual abuse, recovery from high-control religious and psychological environments, complex and attachment trauma, dissociation, and coercive control in relationships, groups and institutions. I also work with sexual trauma, including recovery from sexual exploitation and trafficking. Sexual trauma can change a person’s relationship with their body, sexuality, emotions, boundaries, trust and sense of agency, and I have extensive experience with the dissociation, shame and disrupted attachment that can follow it.

My approach is somatic and contemplative. Trauma isn’t only a collection of painful memories or distorted thoughts, it gets organized in the nervous system, in the body, in attachment patterns and dissociation, and in the way a person experiences their own consciousness. I draw on somatic psychology, mindfulness, attachment repair and parts-oriented work, and we go gradually, building the capacity to stay present with what’s happening inside without being overwhelmed or pulled back into the survival strategies that once kept you safe.

I’ve practiced and taught Samatha-Vipassana meditation for decades. I also know that for people leaving religious or spiritual groups, anything that looks like meditation can carry a lot of weight, so it’s only ever offered, never assumed, and we use it on your terms or not at all.

Before concentrating on trauma counseling, I spent more than thirty years in social justice and humanitarian work, partnering with foundations, nonprofits, educational institutions, Indigenous communities and healthcare initiatives, including resilience and self-compassion work for people in global poverty alleviation. That work shapes how I see trauma. It doesn’t develop in isolation, it happens inside families, religious institutions, communities and structures of power, and many survivors carry histories in which their voice, boundaries or perceptions were repeatedly disregarded. That’s why dignity, autonomy and relational safety come first in the way I work. I also have a background in curriculum and program design, and I especially enjoy group work and group training.

I’m a Mental Health Counselor Associate in Washington State and I see clients online across Washington, under the clinical supervision of a Washington State approved supervisor while I complete the requirements for full licensure. Like every therapist in our collective, I offer a free consultation to new clients, so you can find out whether working together feels right before you commit to anything.