The Powerful Truth About Sharing Your Spiritual Practice In Therapy

Written by: Rachel Anne Kieran, PsyD

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Maya has been in therapy for four months. She has made real progress with her anxiety, and generally enjoys and appreciates her therapist.  But there are pieces of her life she hasn’t shared.  The small altar in her bedroom. The candle she lights each morning. Every year, around Samhain (a pagan holiday near October 31 that honors ancestors), she spends a week thinking about her grandmother, who died two years ago.

These are pieces of her day that support and are meaningful to her.  But she hesitates to share them.  It never “felt like the right moment.” Or it felt just a little too risky.

Maya is a composite, drawn from several clients and conversations, with details changed. But her silence is common. And it raises a fair question: do you tell your therapist about your spiritual practice?

Like every other decision, it is one only the individual can make, but there are good reasons to consider it, and ways to do it that feel safe.

Why So Many People Hold Back

If you’re reluctant to talk about spirituality with your therapist, you’re not alone. Clients often hesitate because they worry their therapist will be biased or closed-minded. People hold back for many understandable reasons:

• Fear of judgment. Will my therapist think this is strange?
• Fear of being pathologized. Will they treat my practice like something to be fixed?
• Past harm. Maybe a previous provider dismissed or misunderstood you.
• Doubt that they’ll get it. Explaining can feel like one more job on top of the work you came to do.

These fears are reasonable. Clients often want to talk about spiritual concerns, while many therapists feel unprepared to respond (Pargament & Saunders, 2007). That gap is real, and you can work with it.

When clients do share, it often helps. In one small interview study, talking about spirituality with an open-minded therapist usually had positive effects. The conversations that went badly were the ones where clients felt judged (Knox et al., 2005).

Why It Matters

Therapy works through the relationship. When we study healing across cultures and time, we find the same collection of ingredients again and again: a person who is suffering, a helper they trust, a setting set aside for healing, a ritual or procedure for working, and a shared explanation for what is wrong (Frank & Frank, 1991; Hill, 2020). In other words, healing is a relationship built on shared meaning. 

That last ingredient is the one that often goes missing. If one of the ways you make meaning lives in your spiritual practice, and your therapist never hears about it, they are working with only part of the map.

This idea sits at the center of my book, Therapy for Pagans: A Spiritually Affirming Path Through Mental Health Care. Therapy is a ritual that you and your therapist build together. The more of you that is in the room, the more of that ritual you can do.

What a Good Response Sounds Like

Your therapist doesn’t have to know your tradition. They do need to be curious and respectful. Look for responses like:

• “Tell me more about that and what it brings to your life?”

• “What does that practice mean to you?”

• “How does it help when things get hard?”

• “Is there anything you’d like me to understand, or anything you’d rather keep private?”

Be cautious if a therapist treats your practice as a symptom, changes the subject, or suggests you give it up before understanding what it does for you.

Your therapist is human, and may not get it exactly right.  One awkward moment isn’t a dealbreaker. Unfamiliar territory can take a minute, and they may be thinking about how best to ask in an affirming way. What matters is what happens next: do they stay curious, or get defensive?

How to Bring It Up

When we worry about how to bring up a piece of our identity, the worry often grows bigger and bigger, until it feels like we need to make the announcement a big event.  You don’t.  In the same way your spirituality is part of a million pieces of who you are, you can bring it up often the same way you might mention any other identity.  You don’t need a speech or a parade (unless you want one!)  Choose the opening that fits where you are:

• Low stakes: “Spirituality is part of how I cope. Is that something you’re comfortable talking about?”
• More direct: “I have a regular spiritual practice that matters to me, and I’d like you to know about it.”
• Tied to a moment: “A holiday I observe is coming up, and it brings up grief for me. Can I tell you about it?”

Try raising it early in the session. So often our fear means we wait until we are almost out the door to share new information, but raising it at the top of the hour leaves time to talk, and gives you both room to ask how it might fit into the work.  You can also try sharing a little and see how it lands. It’s fine to say, “I’d rather not explain all of it right now.”

If It Doesn’t Go Well

If a response stings, you can say so: “That didn’t feel great to me.” A good therapist will welcome that feedback. If the pattern repeats, it’s okay to look for someone else. A poor fit is information, not a failure on your part.

Questions to Ask a Prospective Therapist

Many therapists will answer questions before you begin, by email, through a contact form, or in a consultation call. Questions to try:

• “Have you worked with clients whose spiritual practices are outside the mainstream?”

• “How do you approach spirituality in therapy?”

• “If something is unfamiliar to you, what do you do?”

If you want a provider with specific knowledge, niche directories can help.  For example, if you are looking for providers who welcome pagan and earth-based practices, a colleague and I created the Pagan Affirming Therapy and Healthcare list (PATH) to help people find affirming therapists and healthcare providers. 

Still nervous about starting? This SCW post on what to expect in your first session can help.

Your spiritual practice is part of who you are. In the right room, it can be part of your healing, too.

To discuss how therapy could help you during this season of your life, please contact Sage Counseling and Wellness or schedule your free 15-minute consultation.

Author Bio: Rachel Anne Kieran, PsyD (she/they/Dr) is a licensed psychologist and the author of Therapy for Pagans: A Spiritually Affirming Path Through Mental Healthcare (Llewellyn International, coming June 2027) — a book for pagan and earth-based practitioners seeking therapeutic support, and for the clinicians who want to meet them there.  She is also co-founder of PATH — Pagan-Affirming Therapy & Healthcare — the first searchable national directory connecting people with pagan-affirming providers. Her commitment to affirming care runs through everything she builds: StorieTree Professional Education, which develops continuing education for mental health professionals serving marginalized communities; and StorieBrook Therapy & Consulting, her Atlanta-based group practice serving LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, kink, fat liberation, ethically non-monogamous, and spiritually diverse clients.

References:

Frank, J. D., & Frank, J. B. (1991). Persuasion and healing: A comparative study of psychotherapy (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hill, C. E. (2020). Helping skills: Facilitating exploration, insight, and action (5th ed.). American Psychological Association.

Knox, S., Catlin, L., Casper, M., & Schlosser, L. Z. (2005). Addressing religion and spirituality in psychotherapy: Clients’ perspectives. Psychotherapy Research, 15(3), 287–303.

Pargament, K. I., & Saunders, S. M. (2007). Introduction to the special issue on spirituality and psychotherapy. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 63(10), 903–907.

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