Truth 2x2 Cult Kids Therapy for cult survivors with Sam Sellers
Dec 10, 2025
Sam Sellers, a trauma therapist and cult survivor, sheds light on the challenges of seeking therapy after experiencing religious trauma. She discusses the difference between spiritual abuse and the lingering effects known as religious trauma. Sam emphasizes the importance of finding therapists who understand these dynamics and shares insights on trauma's physical manifestations. Their conversation also touches on the pitfalls of love bombing in cults and the role of online communities in healing. This is a must-listen for anyone navigating recovery from high-control faith systems.
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What Spiritual Abuse Versus Trauma Means
- Sam Sellers distinguishes spiritual abuse as what happened and religious trauma as how it lives in your body afterward.
- This framing helps survivors separate events from embodied consequences and target healing accordingly.
Trauma Is Embodied, Not Just Cognitive
- Trauma lives in the body, not the brain, so cognitive talk therapies alone may not resolve it fully.
- Somatic work targets the physiological traces of fear, dissociation, and hypervigilance to process trauma more effectively.
Dissociation As A Survival Strategy
- Dissociation is a spectrum from mild daydreaming to losing chunks of time and serves as a survival mechanism.
- Naming dissociation as protective (not an enemy) helps survivors reclaim and begin processing embodied trauma.