What a Trauma-Informed Faith Space Actually Feels Like
- Conscious Coore
- Aug 15
- 3 min read
7 Reasons Christian Spaces Often Lack Trauma-Informed Care Strategies
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Reason #4: Many Have Lost Hope That "Safety" Is Possible
Here’s the thing: Trauma‑informed care looks like choice, sounds like consent, and feels like safety—even in a Christian context.
Both client and clinician suffer when these qualities are absent. For the client, the Christian experience can feel suffocating when they’re simply looking for a place to bear their soul’s secrets. For the clinician, the silence can be deafening when they’re searching for meaningful guidance on how to align faith with practice.
With or without formal counseling training, power dynamics tied to the Christian mandate of truth‑telling can quietly enter the room—and when they do, they often recreate the same harmful patterns clients have already learned to brace themselves against.
Clients who invite faith into their process are often open to hearing the truth. But we must also be mindful of those who are unconsciously looking for someone to recreate the dynamics that crippled them. They’re seeking someone to tell them:
What to do
What to think
Who to be
What is true
When they’ve done wrong
How they should be punished
Do you see where I’m going with this?
When someone has internalized a doctrine filled with judgment and shame, they adapt to relationships where someone else governs them, rather than learning to make empowered choices. People are ministered to, but rarely asked what they need.
Clinical counseling draws clear boundaries—but are those boundaries just as clear when we’re demonstrating Christ‑likeness? In the teacher or preacher role, we correct, rebuke, and make the narrow way clear. Power stays concentrated in the hands of the most confident or charismatic. But the counselor takes a different posture—one that gives power back to the wounded and helps them understand and direct their own belief system.
Whatever governs that belief system when we’re not actively trying to change it is where the real work begins. That’s where the client needs space and support to:
Name their reality
Examine whether they agree with their patterns
Investigate their beliefs about key ideas
Decide what they ultimately want for themselves
Many Christians have never experienced this kind of autonomy—and as a result, many are unfamiliar with what true empowerment feels like.
Think about it:
What would a space like that
change for you personally?
Be about it:
Commit to building the space for the
people you're called to.
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Conscious Coore is the founder of Flamingo Trauma Recovery, the creator of the Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention® framework, and author of Fundamentals of Trauma-Informed Spiritual Intervention. With a background in psychology, education, and inner healing ministry, she equips faith-aligned professionals to integrate clinical care and biblical wisdom for lasting transformation. Through her work with Jesus in the Marketplace, she highlights where Safe and Sound work is happening, even in spaces that often overlook the need for it.
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