Why Cult Recovery Is Not Just Individual Work—It’s Relational
Leaving a high-control group, or a cult, is never just an individual journey. Yes, the personal healing work is profound and necessary—unraveling beliefs, reclaiming your body, learning to trust your own inner voice again. But recovery is not something we can—or should—do in isolation. Healing from the wounds of cult involvement is deeply relational because the harm itself was relational.
This kind of relational healing often requires reconnecting to the body and learning how to feel safe with another person again. Through somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, MN, partners can begin to explore how control, fear, and attachment patterns show up in their relationships—and slowly rebuild trust through presence, safety, and shared understanding.
High-control groups don’t just influence what you believe; they shape how you attach, how you connect, and how you understand intimacy, trust, and safety. They often create communities that mimic family systems, with rigid hierarchies, power imbalances, and a culture of secrecy or fear. When those systems fracture or when you step away, the sense of belonging—however conditional it was—can leave a painful void.
This is why couples therapists, researchers, and survivors themselves remind us: the path out of a cult is as much about repairing relationships as it is about reclaiming the self.
The Relational Wounds of High-Control Groups
To understand why relational healing is central, it helps to name the kinds of wounds people carry out of these systems.
Attachment and trust injuries. Cults often exploit human longing for connection and belonging. They offer a sense of family, then use loyalty as leverage. When love and acceptance are tied to obedience, members learn that connection is conditional. This can leave deep scars around trust and safety in future relationships.
Boundaries and enmeshment. Many survivors describe how their lives were monitored—what they wore, who they spoke to, how they spent money or time. This blurring of personal boundaries can make it difficult to know where “you” end and where others begin.
Shame and secrecy. High-control groups thrive on secrecy. Members are often taught to confess sins, report one another, or hide doubts. This dynamic makes it difficult to experience vulnerability without fear of betrayal.
Intergenerational rupture. For those born into these groups, leaving can mean losing connection with parents, siblings, or extended family. Even for converts, the rupture often extends into marriages, friendships, and communities built entirely within the group.
As trauma researcher Judith Herman reminds us, trauma shatters connection—connection to ourselves and to others. Recovery, then, must involve restoring both.
Why Individual Work Alone May Not Be Enough
Individual therapy can be life-changing. It helps survivors reclaim autonomy, process trauma, and build a sense of self that feels whole and authentic. Yet, when cult recovery is approached solely as an individual task, something vital is missing.
Dr. Sue Johnson, the founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy, teaches that humans are wired for connection. Healing happens not just in isolation but in safe, secure bonds with others. Survivors of cults, in particular, need opportunities to experience healthy, mutual, reliable connection—because their original wounds were relational betrayals.
Cult recovery without relational repair can sometimes leave survivors with intellectual clarity but lingering loneliness, hypervigilance, or difficulty in intimacy. It’s like healing the body from the inside but never learning to walk in the world again. We need both: the inner healing and the relational practice.
Relational Pathways to Cult Recovery
So what does relational healing look like in practice? Here are some pathways that can support both individuals and communities in recovery:
1. Safe and Supportive Friendships
Friendship after leaving a cult can feel uncertain. Survivors may fear judgment, feel out of place, or carry habits of people-pleasing. Yet building a few safe, consistent friendships can become a lifeline. Friends who listen without trying to fix, who don’t pressure for religious answers, and who honor boundaries help create new experiences of trust.
Practical idea: Start small. Notice how it feels to share one vulnerable truth with a trusted friend. Pay attention to how they respond. Let your nervous system relearn, little by little, that connection can be safe.
2. Couples and Family Healing
When couples or families leave together, the journey is both comforting and complicated. Partners may grieve differently, or one may want to process more actively while the other avoids the pain. Here, couples therapy or family therapy can be essential.
Stan Tatkin, author of Wired for Love, emphasizes the need for couples to become a secure base for each other—especially after betrayal or rupture. In cult recovery, this means learning to attune to one another without reenacting the controlling dynamics of the group.
Practical idea: Practice “secure functioning” agreements—simple commitments like “we don’t interrupt each other’s healing pace” or “we check in before making big decisions.” These agreements build safety into the relationship itself.
3. Survivor Communities
Isolation is one of the most painful aftermaths of leaving a high-control group. Finding others who understand—whether in online forums, support groups, or local meetups—can be profoundly healing. In these spaces, you don’t have to over-explain. You’re met with knowing nods, shared language, and collective resilience.
Practical idea: Look for survivor networks, like the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA), Reclamation Collective, or local peer-led support groups. Even one monthly meeting can reduce isolation and affirm your sense of belonging.
4. Reparative Professional Relationships
Couples therapy itself can be a relational healing space. Trauma-informed therapists, especially those with expertise in religious trauma or cult recovery, can provide a model of safe, respectful connection. The therapeutic alliance—built on collaboration and trust—can help undo patterns of power imbalance and secrecy.
As Internal Family Systems (IFS) founder Dr. Richard Schwartz highlights, when we connect with our own “Self” and share that with a compassionate witness, healing unfolds naturally. Therapy becomes not only about insight but about practicing a new kind of relationship.
Practical idea: Ask a potential therapist about their experience with high-control groups. Notice how it feels to share a small piece of your story. Your body will often tell you if this is someone safe to walk with.
The Challenge of Relearning the Relationship
Of course, none of this is easy. For many survivors, opening up feels dangerous. Vulnerability once led to punishment, exclusion, or manipulation. It can take time—and many missteps—to learn that relationships can be mutual, nurturing, and real.
This is why patience and self-compassion matter. As trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem reminds us, healing requires tending not just to the mind but to the body. Our nervous systems carry the memory of relational harm, and they need gradual, embodied experiences of safety to recalibrate.
Practical idea: Pay attention to your body in relationships. Notice when you feel tense, when you want to flee, or when you feel warmth and relaxation. These are signs of your nervous system telling the story. With support, you can learn to trust these signals again.
Rebuilding Belonging
At its core, cult recovery is about reclaiming belonging—first within yourself, then with others. The group may have promised unconditional love but delivered conditional worth. Recovery invites you to reverse that story: to know your worth as inherent, and to seek relationships that affirm it.
Leaving a high-control group is one of the hardest things a person can do. But the hard work of recovery—learning to trust, love, and belong again—is also what makes life beautiful.
Closing Reflection
Cult recovery is not a straight path, and it is never just about the individual. The harm was relational, and so the healing must also be relational. Whether through couples therapy, community, friendship, or partnership, recovery means learning to be connected again—this time in ways that honor your wholeness and autonomy.
If you are walking this path, know that your healing is not only about leaving the past behind but about creating new, life-giving ways of being with yourself and with others. You don’t have to do it alone.
Reclaim the Relationship You Deserve with Couples Therapy in St. Paul MN
Leaving a high-control group or belief system can change everything about how you love, trust, and relate. The path forward isn’t just about what you’re leaving behind—it’s about learning to feel safe in connection again. At NobleTree Therapy, our approach to somatic couples therapy in St. Paul, Minneapolis, & throughout Minnesota helps partners slow down, notice what’s happening in the body, and practice new ways of being with one another that invite safety, honesty, and care. This is a space for couples ready to heal relational wounds and rediscover what it means to belong—to themselves and to each other.
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Come as you are—with your stories, your tenderness, and the parts still learning to trust again. There’s room for it all here.
Other Therapy Services at NobleTree Therapy in Minnesota
At NobleTree Therapy, our work centers on connection—both to self and to others. We support individuals, couples, and queer families across Minneapolis, St. Paul, and beyond as they navigate the emotional toll of stress, disconnection, and uncertainty. Whether you’re processing the impact of political tension, spiritual shame, or old relational wounds, we hold space for you to move from survival into steadiness.
Alongside somatic couples therapy, we offer LGBTQIA+ affirming care that integrates nervous system awareness, mindfulness, and depth-oriented work. Many of our clients explore identity shifts, religious and spiritual trauma, grief that’s hard to name, or the exhaustion that comes from trying to stay grounded in an overwhelming world. Here, your story is met with compassion and curiosity—not with quick fixes or judgment.
Our approach invites you to reconnect with your body, your values, and your capacity for genuine connection. Healing at NobleTree is slow, relational, and deeply human—because your voice, your love, and your hope for something steadier all matter.
About the Author
Kendra Snyder, MA, LMFT, NCC (she/her), is a queer, somatic couples therapist and the founder of NobleTree Therapy. Licensed in Minnesota and Colorado, Kendra specializes in LGBTQIA2S+-affirming therapy that embraces the intricate connections between identity, love, and partnership.
With a trauma-informed and relational approach, Kendra works with couples navigating the intersections of non-monogamy, neurodivergence, religious trauma, and desire recovery. She believes that healing from cult dynamics isn’t just an individual journey—it’s deeply relational. At NobleTree, Kendra helps couples reclaim their relationships as spaces for creativity, connection, and growth, moving beyond survival to rediscover joy and wholeness—together.