About My Sanctuary Healing™
We believe the Inside Out Freedom From Spiritual Abuse is possible.
You deserve to live a life of freedom from pain on the inside and enjoy your spiritual community on the outside. We’re here to show you there’s hope for a better future, freedom from abuse & peace of mind.
We’re here to help you:
– Reduce the abusive memories of abuse
– Minimize symptoms of anxiety, intrusive thoughts, & relationship issues
– Find a new hope for a future away from abuse
– Help you find a true spiritual community once again
We truly believe that God did not intend for you to live this hell, but rather wants you to have the opportunity to heal.
The Story of
My Sanctuary Healing™
My Sanctuary Healing™ was coined over 15 years ago by my husband, a church pastor, and me to describe our work with religious abuse survivors in an article. Over the last three decades we have responded both pastorally and therapeutically to a myriad of individuals who had been wounded by bad religious practices.
We found time and time again that individuals suffering the effects of trauma and typically had lost their faith. Together my husband, Mark, and I embarked upon a ministry in which I did the psychotherapy and he engaged the women (sometimes men) in pastoral counseling.
The premise of our ministry has been to encourage healing through an intensive process of trauma therapy, while simultaneously exploring the horrors of their religious abuse within the reframing of a religious context, so that it becomes a safe place to encourage further exploration of religious abuse. In other words, the healing process begins by leaving the abuse and focusing inward to find the stories of pain and to rediscover new ways to make sense out of Spirit, and then eventually turning outward towards an involvement in a spiritual community once again.
My Sanctuary Healing programs provide a personal approach & help we provide to our clients, being their support & advisor on their healing journey.
Your journey here is symbolized by the living vine that brings you through the steps of healing. The vine will travel with you from the broken window of victimhood to the various windows of healing as a survivor, that end with a beautiful window that brings you to a thriving life filled with peace.
My
“Something that is associated with the speaker, and feels personal.”
Sanctuary
“A safe place providing
a shelter from danger or hardship.
Healing
“The process of making or becoming sound or healthy again”
Dealing with the negative experiences is hard. Not healing from them can be even harder.
We continue to encounter individuals who have been damaged by religion and feel called to launch the MY SANCTUARY HEALING™ method in a virtual environment to reach religious abuse victims nationally and internationally.
The MY SANCTUARY HEALING™ method is a spiritual coaching program that will enable its participants to find their own internal sanctuary and healing.
As the individuals progress through the seven shifts of the program, they will be encouraged to enter into an external sanctuary or religious setting, while they work with both a trauma healing coach and a pastoral counselor.
As the individuals continue in the coaching program, they will turn their religious trauma into a new unique spirituality that is all their own. Further, the clients will be encouraged to become a part of an online spiritual community that will be a part of the MY SANCTUARY HEALING™ program.
get to know
Pamela Pater-Ennis a.k.a. 
My name is Dr. Pamela Pater-Ennis, LCSW, MDiv, PhD. and I am the creator of MY SANCTUARY HEALING™. I am an energized faith-based trauma therapist (social worker) and minister, who wants you to know that not all religion is bad.
I have been a licensed clinical social worker and ordained minister for over 35 years & I am an expert in the field of spiritual trauma and religious abuse.
My mission is to help you find healing from your horrific experiences of religious abuse that will bring you peace both inside and out. As you re-experience spirituality and even religion in a new trustworthy manner, it is my sincere hope for you that you will find a spiritual or religious community in which to belong.
I am the founder and Executive Director of the Hudson River Care & Counseling, LLC program in Hoboken and Teaneck, NJ, (and on telehealth these days), where we strive to meet the relationship and mental health needs of a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and interfaith religious communities. I bring to this work extensive experience in trauma therapy and pastoral counseling. I have Masters degrees in social work and divinity and a PhD in social work.
I have written Out in the Pulpit (2019), a study on lesbian clergy, and co-written with my husband the article, “Sanctuary Healing” (2005), which was featured in The Journal of Religion and Abuse. Lastly, my husband and I are in the process of co-writing a workbook on healing from religious abuse, which will be published in late 2021.
Featured in NorthJerseyMedia.com (USA Today) and will soon be featured in Social Work Advocates Magazine (www.Social workers.org) in April/May 2021 issue.
