Dr. Grisel Lopez-Escobar, PhD, LMHC, NCC
Licensed Mental Health Counselor # MH 20052
Providing Virtual Therapy to Adult Clients Located in the States of Florida (primary license),
as well as Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wisconsin, USA
Specializing in Supporting Clients who are Newly Secular / Deconstructing / Have Experienced Religious Trauma or Shunning / Wish to Heal from Purity Culture
Welcome!
I specialize in supporting clients who have decided to leave high demand / high control religions, groups and cults. People leave religious groups for many reasons. Some do so after experiencing a single faith crisis, and others due so after years of considering the pros and cons. Some people are born-in, and others joined as adults. Some of my clients just started deconstruction, some of them are right smack in the middle of the process, and some left years ago and now wish to process the ways in which these experiences continue to impact them. Regardless of your path, having a safe place to process it all, without judgement, can be of great help.
Being newly secular means that you might need support with:​
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discerning how your former high control group might have affected you, as seen through Dr. Steven Hassan’s BITE (Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotion) Model of Authoritarian Control
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navigating deconstruction, regardless of whether you are PIMO ('physically in, mentally out'), 'out' but not yet 'officially out' as per the former group or... fully 'out'
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overcoming religious trauma and Adverse Religious Experiences (AREs)
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healing from purity culture / shame about your body or about sex
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dealing with the aftereffects or threats of being shunned, excommunicated, or disfellowshipped
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learning how to trust yourself and make your own decisions, perhaps for the very first time
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creating a new sense of self
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Each client comes in with a different set of goals. My role is to create a safe space where you can parse through old messages and analyze which ones you currently find beneficial and which ones you do not. It can be a liberating experience for you to better understand the link between what you were first taught as a small child and your current thoughts, behaviors and fear patterns.​
Private
Psychotherapy Practice
Specializing in
Supporting
Clients
Who Are
Some of these early messages might surround issues on:
• your inherent worth as a human
• power, body autonomy, safety, setting and keeping boundaries
• whether or not you have the right to your feelings, thoughts, opinions and wants
• purity culture, surveillance culture, shame, fear, power, gender, gender roles and sexuality
• your right (or lack of right) to question the teachings or leaders of your group.
Maybe this is your first time considering therapy, and you're wondering how it would all work. I mean, there's probably been a lot of things that you've been keeping pretty close to your chest, and the idea of discussing them with a therapist might be... kind of weird. Although you know that theoretically therapy should be helpful, getting THAT real, THAT vulnerable, might seem not even icky, but also pretty scary, if not downright impossible. I get it. The good news is that you'll remain in charge throughout the whole process. It's a judgement-free zone where you can freely discuss what's going on for you and find practical ways forward. How's that sound?
You might be worried that therapy might be a bit too intangible of a process for you. Well, rest assured that at least with me, it won't be. The good news is that psychotherapy's long since left the realm of the nebulous and is considered a quantifiable process, firmly rooted in years of scientific research and evidence-based practice. As your therapist, I'll be there alongside to help you better understand how your thoughts, emotions, behaviors and experiences correlate.
Thanks to my life experiences I come to the therapeutic relationship from a variety of cultures. Think of me as an American / Latin-American / European hybrid. I know what it's like to adapt to new circumstances, and to learn how to summon the inner strength required to survive and thrive. English is the language I speak the best, and I also provide therapy in French and Spanish.
Reach out if you have any questions – you and I can have a 20-min. chat (well, more like a minimum of 20-min. chat) before you decide if you would like to work with me. Remember, if you do decide to move forward and choose me as your therapist and then change your mind, no worries— what matters is that you find the right therapist for you!
Life is precious and we’re only here for pretty much the blink of an eye. My goal is to help my fellow humans make the very best of their time on Earth, or on what scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan dubbed… the ‘Pale Blue Dot.’ I look forward to hearing from you! In the meantime I invite you to visit my page dedicated to TED talks on the subject of religious deconstruction.
