Therapy for Purity Culture Recovery in Denver
Compassionate, trauma-informed therapy to help you untangle sexual shame, reclaim your body, and build a healthy relationship with intimacy.
You’ve moved on from I Kissed Dating Goodbye… but your nervous system hasn’t gotten the memo.
A past version of you took a purity pledge, maybe even had a ring to prove it. For a while you took that pledge really seriously.
You read I Kissed Dating Goodbye and asked your church camp boyfriend to read it too.
If you were to describe your adolescent style profile, it would have been “modest is hottest.”
You for sure didn’t want to risk meeting your future spouse as a rose with a bunch of petals picked off or a glass full of other people’s spit.
You know what it’s like to feel like you’re being monitored, even when you’re alone.
As an adult you’ve decided you don’t actually believe those lessons anymore.
You want to give dating a great big smooch and throw that purity ring into Cherry Creek. Your body, however, hasn’t caught up with your brain.
You find yourself questioning the jean cutoffs you thought looked super cute in the mirror the second you’re about to leave the house.
You get a pit in your stomach or a sudden freeze response during an otherwise fun makeout sesh.
There’s a full on shame spiral or panic attack after sex with your partner.
You want to like sex but you have trouble knowing what feels good to your body let alone being able to share that with a partner.
Maybe physical touch or sex doesn’t even feel good because your body is so tense you can’t relax and enjoy the experience.
If you grew up LGBTQ+ or questioning, purity culture likely did something even more specific to you.
It didn't just police who you dated or how far things went. It treated the fact of your attraction, your identity, or who you loved as the impurity itself, something to be prayed away, hidden, or fixed. Maybe you dated the "safe" gender to prove, to yourself as much as others, you were fine. Maybe you still flinch at your own feelings before you've even let yourself notice them. Healing here isn't only about reclaiming your body from a list of sexual rules. It's about reclaiming the parts of you that were never actually broken to begin with.
Healing from Purity Culture is Possible
The thing is, when we grow up hearing certain messages, our brain develops around those beliefs.
When our critical thinking skills decide those beliefs no longer fit for us, our brain wiring needs some time to catch up. It’s like updating the software on your sexual ethics.
Therapy for purity culture recovery can help you:
Replace old "rules" dictated by other people with internal guidance and boundaries that align with your personal beliefs.
Heal the mind-body disconnect caused by viewing the body and your intuition as sinful and untrustworthy.
Develop a sexual ethics system that aligns with your current values.
Quiet the voice of "the internal religious critic" and replace that voice with a more compassionate one, guided by your authentic self.
Here's what that can look like in session.
Sometimes we start with a specific memory (a youth group lock-in, a modesty talk, the moment you got pulled aside about your outfit) and use EMDR to help your brain finish processing it so it stops firing off shame or panic when you’re reminded of that situation. Other sessions are slower and more physical, learning how to notice where your body tenses before you even know why, learning to track sensation instead of override it, practicing what it feels like to make a choice about your own body without checking anyone else's rulebook first. The goal goes beyond understanding what happened to you. You gain an actual felt sense of safety in your own skin.
Reclaiming Your Autonomy: How I Help with Purity Culture Recovery
As a trauma-informed therapist I understand that moving away from the lessons taught by purity culture is deeper and more complex than just changing your mind.
Purity culture deeply ingrained that your body did not belong to you (but to your future spouse), that your body and intuition could not be trusted, and that your worth as a person was wholly dependent on staying “pure.” That doesn’t just go away, but here is how I can help:
EMDR helps your brain actually reprocess, and re-wire, how you remember those youth group purity talks so that those messages no longer trigger shame, panic, and confusion when you’re making decisions about your own body.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy helps you decide what values actually matter to you now and how to live a life in alignment with those values.
Self-compassion techniques help to replace the harsh inner critic that sounds like the judgemental church lady who was always giving you the side eye about your skirt length.
While your brain knows you're safe, your body is still reacting to old 'danger' signals. We work from the 'bottom-up' to teach your nervous system that your autonomy is now your reality.
Work With a Therapist Who Gets It
As a recovering “good girl” myself I know what it’s like to wear a t-shirt over your swim suit at camp, to be encouraged to “date Jesus” rather than boys, and to have internalized a deep sense of shame about my body and sex.
You don't have to spend three sessions explaining what a purity ring is or why the rose petal metaphor was so damaging. I speak the language of your past, which allows us to focus entirely on your future. I’ve worked it out, helped others do the same, and want to help you too. This work isn’t about replacing purity culture dogma with another set of rigid rules, but rather to help you tap into your autonomy and freedom to make choices for yourself that feel aligned. I’m not here to tell you how to live, but to help you turn up the volume on your intuition so you can hear yourself again.
Imagine a world where:
You walk to your date in LoHi feeling confident in your skin and secure in your boundaries.
You know what feels good and how to communicate that with others.
You understand how to listen to your intuition and use that as guidance.
You feel free to be yourself.
Your body feels like it belongs to you and no one else.
Whether we work together in my Denver office or online, I offer virtual therapy for purity culture recovery to clients anywhere in Colorado, so distance doesn't have to be the reason you stay stuck.