One of the best-known therapists and coaches working with people suffering religious trauma has been sanctioned by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for violating the group’s Code of Ethics on boundaries.
In a letter dated July 25, Laura Anderson was informed by the AAMFT Ethics Committee that it had dropped two of four charges against her but found her in violation of the other two. BNG also has learned a new case against Anderson is now pending before the Ethics Committee.
Anderson is the author of When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion. She has appeared on at least 75 deconstruction-related podcasts in progressive Christianity or the ex-evangelical space. And she played a key role in the controversy that embroiled Tim Whitaker and The New Evangelicals last spring.
Laura Anderson
Seven women who claim they have been victimized by Anderson have given exclusive interviews to BNG.
For her part, Anderson told BNG the reasons for the AAMFT sanctions are “not uncommon” among therapists.
Because AAMFT’s Ethics Committee considers cases once a year and typically does not make its findings public, there is no way to know how common any such sanctions are among licensed therapists.
The charges
The letter from the AAMFT Ethics Committee says Anderson was found in violation of two substandards of the Code of Ethics:
One of those states: “Marriage and family therapists who are in a supervisory role are aware of their influential positions with respect to students and supervisees, and they avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of such persons. Therapists, therefore, make every effort to avoid conditions and multiple relationships that could impair professional objectivity or increase the risk of exploitation. When the risk of impairment or exploitation exists due to conditions or multiple roles, therapists take appropriate precautions.”
The other states: “Marriage and family therapists are aware of their influential positions with respect to supervisees, and they avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of such persons. Supervisors, therefore, make every effort to avoid conditions and multiple relationships with supervisees that could impair professional judgment or increase the risk of exploitation. Examples of such relationships include, but are not limited to, business or close personal relationships with supervisees or the supervisee’s immediate family. When the risk of impairment or exploitation exists due to conditions or multiple roles, supervisors document the appropriate precautions taken.”
Because of her violations, Anderson will be required to complete nine hours of continuing education “approved by the chair which must focus on the following areas: ethics in supervision and multiple relationships with supervisees.”
Failure to complete this continuing education will lead to “further possible violations.”
Within the world therapy, relational boundaries are firmly enforced and so-called “dual relationships” are anathema. A dual relationship for a therapist occurs when they have a second, nonprofessional relationship with a client, alongside their therapeutic role. This can involve friendships, business partnerships, familial connections or even social interactions outside the therapy setting.
Anderson’s response
In response to a BNG inquiry, Anderson downplayed the Ethics Committee sanctions.
“What was found was that there was a dual relationship (that the person who submitted the complaint was a supervisee and a coach at my company) but that this relationship was not exploitative as the complainant claimed,” she said. “The complaints that the person made was that there was a dual relationship and that I could have exploited her as a result. However, the ‘exploitation’ claims were not found to be valid. The dual relationship was, because I did not dispute that. However, the way the ethical code is written, it does suggest that a dual relationship could have a negative impact. But the negative impact that the complainant accused me of was not found to be valid.
“It’s important to note that the dual relationship is that this person was an academic intern (for my therapy practice) AND a coach that contracted her services to my company. It’s also worth noting that the complainant initiated the dual relationship (which is also on record) and though I absolutely should not have allowed it, this was not something that is uncommon to happen.”
Why this matters
One of the most sacred spaces on earth is the vulnerability many of us feel when we share the stories of the dreams we buried in the soil of religious trauma.
Unfortunately, many therapists don’t have the knowledge to help us move through the religious nature of our abuse due to the unique role theology and church culture play in hurting us. Thus, one option for survivors of religious abuse has been to open up to religious trauma coaches.
It can feel safe to open up to them, especially ones who have left the faith entirely because they don’t have a goal to bring us back into the fold. But while therapists have professional licensing boards that govern their practices, the world of religious trauma coaching can be a bit like the Wild West. Therefore, some religious trauma coaches also become licensed therapists.
Anderson is just such a person, advertising services as both a religious trauma coach and as a religious trauma therapist.
She received a master of arts degree in marriage and family therapy from Liberty University in 2010 and a Ph.D. in mind body medicine from Saybrook University in May 2021. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Tennessee and an approved supervisor and supervisor mentor with the AAMFT. She started the Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery in May 2021, which uses “the medium of coaching to provide access to trauma resolution and recovery to clients all over the world.”
With all those credentials, if there was anyone someone with religious trauma could trust, it should be Anderson, right?
Imagine the reopening of wounds if a religious trauma expert like Anderson were found guilty of violating their Code of Ethics.
And despite her protestations that these sanctions are minimal, other licensed therapists don’t see it that way.
“Anderson also is being charged in a second case that will begin adjudication this fall.”
Unfortunately, this situation wasn’t a one-off. According to inside sources, Anderson also is being charged in a second case that will begin adjudication this fall. And given the number of women who were willing to push through their fear and talk with me, as well as Anderson’s prominence among progressive Christians and ex-evangelicals, the two counts she’s been convicted on likely are just the introduction to a tangled web of alleged abuse in the world of religious trauma recovery.
A chorus of fear
“She is completely dangerous,” one woman told me.
“She’s threatened me if I go public,” relayed another.
“She’s mean and highly manipulative,” claimed a third.
One by one, seven brave women stepped into their fears as they told me their stories. BNG gathered these voluntary interviews several months ago but did not publish this article until the first AAMFT ruling was official.
Each of these women spoke independently of one another. And some of them don’t even know each other. These are their words, not mine.
“She will know it’s me, but she can’t have any way of finding me.”
“She will do anything to bully me so it’s important I stay as anonymous as possible.”
“She will do anything to bully me so it’s important I stay as anonymous as possible.”
“She knows sensitive details about my kids. She says she has receipts of our conversations.”
“I got this weird, unsettling feeling very quickly from her. I felt like I was in a meeting with someone really nefarious.”
The depth and extent of fear and concern these women have related to Anderson is notable. But they’re being vulnerable and brave enough to share their stories in hopes of preventing more abuse survivors from facing abuse in their healing process.
Blurring of boundaries
Many of these allegations appear to stem from the way Anderson allegedly blurs professional boundaries — the heart of the current ethics violations.
In one podcast interview, Anderson says many religions view boundaries as “very much rules based. Here’s the things you can do and you can’t do. And I need everybody else around me to follow my set of rules in order for me to feel safe.” But she says rather than creating safety, “That also does not actually create relationship because then we are now just having to succumb to a set of rules. Otherwise, I’m going to be deemed an unsafe person or somebody that you’ll cut out of your life because I haven’t followed your rules.”
Anderson’s blurring of boundaries also is evident in another podcast interview, where she attempts to explain her work: “The only reason that I continue practicing therapy is because I am also a licensure supervisor, which allows me to provide supervision to other people who are in the process of getting licensed. In terms of how I am as a therapist and how I am as a coach is the same. … You don’t have to be a therapist. You could be a coach, you could be a therapist, you could be a massage therapist, you could be a teacher … like a variety of different ways. So in that way, that’s how what I am across the board.”
“In terms of how I am as a therapist and how I am as a coach is the same.”
But according to professional standards, a licensed therapist cannot at the same time advertise services as a coach. One person can perform both roles, but only with strict boundaries separating the two. Therapists are licensed. Coaches are not. Therapists cannot work across state lines. Coaches have no geographical boundaries.
The GRACE report
My investigation into Anderson began in March, when a report from GRACE named her as the mediator the progressive Christian organization The New Evangelicals hired to meet with TNE founder Tim Whitaker and multiple women who were contractors with TNE and who were accusing Whitaker of anger-related abuse. GRACE is a Christian organization that focuses on investigating allegations of abuse.
The GRACE report concluded it was a conflict of interest for Anderson to mediate in Whitaker’s case, given Whitaker’s relationship with her. And both Whitaker and TNE agreed.
The GRACE investigation happened in August, just one month before Anderson’s hearing with the AAMFT ethics board. GRACE investigators also cited red flags about Anderson’s blurring of boundaries beyond simply the nature of Anderson’s relationship with Whitaker.
“After GRACE investigators interviewed mediator for this investigation, mediator emailed them noting the likely ‘overlap in the types of cases you work on with the types of clients we see’ and suggesting ‘future collaboration or professional connection (e.g. referrals)’ between mediator’s organization and GRACE,” the report states.
“The GRACE report concluded it was a conflict of interest for Anderson to mediate in Whitaker’s case.”
In other words, she was attempting to spin the GRACE investigation into future business for herself.
“Mediator’s failure to recognize the potential conflict of interest in her suggestion so quickly after being interviewed as a witness and a theoretical independent mediator on a case for which GRACE was performing an active investigation further underscores an underappreciation of actual or perceived conflicts of interest and their potential impact on independence in evaluating and handling interpersonal dynamics,” the report explains.
Abusive driving
One of the key allegations against Whitaker was that he put the employee RV in a car and then drove recklessly, in such a way that the employee feared for her life. This has been labeled “abusive driving” or “angry driving.”
Ironically, Anderson herself has been accused of abusive driving.
One of Anderson’s friends, a domestic abuse survivor with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and known highway trauma, says she experienced this blur between friend and client on the way to a gathering in Nashville. She told BNG: “We got in the car. And though I didn’t know we were going on the highway, we got on the interstate. I was panic attacking. And I was like, ‘I need to get out. We need to pull over.’ And I went into full freeze and full flight and full shutdown.”
“She’s weaving through traffic, through construction zones, through semis. This went on for nearly an hour.”
She says Anderson didn’t acknowledge these obvious panic symptoms. Instead, “She’s weaving through traffic, through construction zones, through semis. This went on for nearly an hour. I’m heaving, crying, freezing, locked up. We get to the party. And in the parking lot, I’m crying and sobbing. And she’s like, ‘I want you to know that you can behave this way and your friends won’t leave you.’ And later, in the days after, she said, ‘This was good exposure. You need to get over this. You need to get through this. You need to integrate your parts.’”
Anderson’s response
Anderson claims to be totally caught off guard by the accusations, says she was trying to be attentive to her friend’s needs, and denies operating outside of consent. Regarding her angry driving incident, Anderson told her, “I am taken aback to hear you share about the experience in the car in October the way you have as that is quite different than what I recall. … I know you to be a thoughtful and thorough person and the letter you sent me isn’t a reflection of that.”
To another friend, she wrote, “I never, ever imagined that this is how we would part ways and it deeply saddens me. … I am confused as to who you think I am. Am I the horrible, gaslighting, toxic monster you’ve suggested? Or am I someone who has unknowingly been a character in your narrative that is now being punished for something I did not partake in? Or am I actually someone you valued? Because honestly, the latter doesn’t feel particularly true.”
This former friend of Anderson’s says the therapist was treating her like a client without her consent.
“She was deciding for me basically how I was supposed to do this,” the friend told BNG. “I think she was treating me as a therapist even though I was a friend. And it felt very boundary violating. It put the power dynamic off.”
“Am I the horrible, gaslighting, toxic monster you’ve suggested?”
Later, this person added: “She gives the party line, the therapeutic line that you’re not supposed to do that. But that’s not how she lives and practices. So if you’re her friend, she steps into the therapist role mindlessly, seamlessly.”
The incident ended after months of dealing with the consequences of Anderson’s actions.
“I got super sick immediately,” her former friend recalled. “I ended up with a cardiac arrhythmia. And my doctors and my therapists all said, ‘This was a traumatic event for you. It wasn’t a re-trigger. It wasn’t your previous trauma. This was a new traumatic event.’ My doctor told me I was going to have to have heart surgery unless I cut off the person who did this to me, unless I stopped being around them all the time.”
That’s when she decided to stand up to Anderson.
The timing is notable — May 2024. Despite simultaneously being confronted over her own threatening driving and blurred boundaries, Anderson moved forward as a mediator for Whitaker and TNE, which the GRACE report says was coordinated by Whitaker himself on July 3, 2024. However, it is not known whether Whitaker and TNE knew of any allegations against Anderson.
Interpersonal dynamics in the workplace
Imagine if someone who had a pattern of blurring boundaries and withholding and controlling information started an organization to help people heal from their religious trauma. Who would she hire? And how would she relate to her employees?
According to multiple sources, issues began surfacing after Anderson was confronted for hiring a man to handle her social media. An employee brought forward “five corroborated stories that he’s an abuser, that he gets close to business women, steals their money and leaves,” one of the sources told BNG.
Another witness said, “I believe it was in March of last year that the whistleblower came forward and I learned about (his) history with abusing women. I knew Laura was made aware of it all as well.”
This man “is a dangerous grifter who used his brand-new connection with Laura to build a small religious trauma platform on Instagram. When all of this blew up with him and Laura’s company, he privated his account and hasn’t been public on Instagram in some time,” noted one of our sources.
But despite multiple people bringing their concerns to her, Anderson allegedly chose to ignore the allegations, go after the whistleblower instead, and seek the accused man’s counsel for financial and business decisions.
Another set of incidents happened after a different man stepped down as a writer for the conservative evangelical organizations The Gospel Coalition and Desiring God and claimed he wanted to become a religious trauma coach. According to one witness, this man “was like this angry Calvinist who decided he was going to deconstruct. So he said he wanted to be a religious trauma coach. But what he was actually doing was he was hitting on four or five of the cute yoga-body coaches. And they were kind of onto him. Eventually, the women figured out that he was womanizing and they started warning everybody.”
But when one of Anderson’s employees and friends fell for this man, Anderson allegedly became deeply involved.
“Throughout 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I became increasingly uncomfortable with Laura’s involvement in my personal life.”
“Throughout 2021 and the beginning of 2022, I became increasingly uncomfortable with Laura’s involvement in my personal life, feeling that lines were crossed with how much she wanted to influence my romantic relationships in particular,” the employee wrote in an official complaint to the AAMFT Ethics Committee, separate from the investigation that led to four charges. “Laura would regularly use her therapeutic knowledge to assess my personal relationships, and eventually I felt she took on a role of ‘parent’ to me.”
When the employee worked up the courage to resign, Anderson responded via email.
“I want to assure you that this is part of the personal/friendship piece,” Anderson wrote. “There is a reason that I have subtly and not so subtly suggested you read Healing the Fragmented Selves of the Trauma Survivor by Janina Fisher. I believe that you have a Dissociative Identity Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified that is brought on from trauma (a survival strategy).”
For those who are unaware, it is highly unethical for a therapist to diagnose someone who has not given informed consent to being treated as a client. And the employee, who was referred to as a friend and treated as a client, was caught entirely off guard by these words.
But Anderson denies what she said was a diagnosis.
In an email to the employee, Anderson wrote: “I do not accept the accusation that I am being abusive with my therapeutic knowledge. We have a friendship where we have consistently talked about various diagnoses, trauma, attachment, our own symptoms, what we see in each other’s life, etc. I did not diagnose you with anything. I simply said that I thought it was something that you had BECAUSE IT IS A DIAGNOSIS I HAVE.”
Still, the employee experienced it otherwise.
“It took me over a year to recover from what Laura did in those emails,” she said. “I can only describe it as a re-traumatization. I spiraled and panicked and felt extremely unsafe for weeks. My own therapist was very angry on my behalf and rightly encouraged me to report Laura to her licensing boards, as what Laura did was not only unethical but illegal. I was too afraid to do that, as I had seen Laura spin the story of my sudden departure … on social media within hours of my final email to her. I have only recently learned that Laura purchased domains with my name in them and hosted Zoom meetings with her practitioners to promote her side of the story (which was full of either half-truths or lies).”
‘Stirring up drama and then being high counsel’
One source told me: “The pattern is that she exploits your weaknesses to keep you close. And then if you don’t stay close, then it’s defamation and she’ll ruin you and she’ll remind you of what she has over you. She loves stirring up drama and then being high counsel to help solve it.”
These words about Anderson positioning herself as high counsel amid drama are notable, given her role as mediator in the allegations against Whitaker and TNE, as well as her prominence as an influencer among progressive Christian and ex-evangelical platforms.
Anderson’s alleged blurring of boundaries has led to at least a half dozen vulnerable women being terrified, to at least two investigations by the AAMFT and to two guilty verdicts on four counts of violations against their Code of Ethics.
Anderson consistently appears shocked at the allegations these women are bringing against her. And yet, the stories these women tell have so much overlap with one another and with GRACE’s observations.
And here’s the bigger problem: Even if Anderson were to lose all her cases with AAMFT and lose her professional license, she’d still be able to provide coaching services to those who have suffered religious trauma because, as one source noted, “There is no legal or ethical system of accountability or governing board for coaches, so she can operate however she wants, with no accountability, as a coach.”
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.