A woman with blonde hair, wearing glasses and a black sweater, smiling and sitting in a yellow chair with a textured wall background.

Hello!

I’m Jacqui Nelson, MA, LMHC (She/Her)

Licensed Mental Health Therapist & Religious Trauma Survivor

A bit about my story…

When I was in my early 20’s, I attended a discipleship program at my church called The Master’s Commission. While it was only a year long program, I ended up staying for five long years.

After I left that program I felt disoriented, damaged, and underprepared for what was next in my life. A couple of years later things took a turn and I was suddenly asked to leave my church. It was a horribly devastating moment and I didn’t know how to make sense of it. I couldn’t understand how they could call me “part of the family” and the next minute no longer be part of that family.

I decided that I needed some help sorting through the grief, hurt, and anger and sought out a therapist. It was that therapist who first named for me that what I had experienced was called spiritual abuse.

Naming the harm that occurred to me in that tiny therapy room was one of the most profound moments of my life, and is, in part, what led to me becoming a therapist.

My own journey through religious trauma is what guides me in doing trauma work. My goal is to walk through those traumatic spaces in your story with you, and help you get to the other side.

Scenic view of mountains, a lake, and cloudy sky in a natural landscape.

Education

  • Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Whitworth University (2014)

  • Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology (2017)

Continued Education:

  • Trauma Related Dissociation (2019)

  • Multi-dimensional Inventory of Dissociation Training (2020)

  • Ego-State Therapy Interventions (2020)

  • Dissociative Identity Disorder Training (2022)

  • Foundations of Religious Trauma Training (2022)

  • Traumatic Narcissism Theory (2024)

  • Relational Psychodynamic Certificate Program through the Contemporary Psychodynamic Institute

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.”

-Maya Angelou